Review of Douglas Wilson’s American Milk and Honey: Antisemitism, The Promise of Deuteronomy, And the True Israel of God

Douglas Wilson starts his book with a preface titled “Rock Wall Preface”,[1] which appears to be an analogy for the process of constructing the book from seemingly irregular elements, but might (though he does not make this connection) have also served as an analogy for the purpose of the book: a wall to keep certain types of scapegoating thinking outside of the communities he leads or has influence on. The particular concern in the book is to oppose hatred of Jews[2] and present a positive vision for their place in the growth of God’s kingdom in the world.

            The book is concise, and achieves many, though not all, of its objectives. Wilson is good at taking deep theological concepts and communicating them to a broad audience. However, the book might be a little bit too concise, and could have more clearly identified the questions relevant to some of the issues it gets into by expanding and updating the mix of sources used. I did get the impression that Wilson relayed heavily on previous research done two or three decades ago (or, at least, books first read around that long ago) for some important sections of the book; given that Wilson reads prolifically this still turned out mostly okay, and I understand that he wanted to keep it concise, however there were issues where additional sources would have facilitated concisely identifying and addressing issues within the text. As to length, the book probably needed to be ten to twenty pages longer, as there is one set of objections which probably required a more detailed response. Wilson succeeded in providing a positive vision for an audience that isn’t much attached to any specific objections, however he seemed to assume that the applicability of his eschatological and historical points to the opinions he was trying to counter was obvious, for one notable subset of contrary opinions that required more explicitly putting the pieces together and addressing seemingly adverse facts to increase the chances of winning over people in that part of his audience.

Going to the specifics of the book, unlike much discourse in contemporary Western polite society, Wilson is very clear on the difference between Christianity and Judaism. He does also push back on some interpretative approaches which misidentify the basis of the difference, for instance, Wilson argues that the word often translated “Jews” had more than one usage within the New Testament, and in some contexts within the Gospel of John likely refers to Judeans.[3] On another point, Wilson argues that in the Old Covenant, Jews were a priestly nation, but that gentiles could be saved without becoming Jews.[4] The New Covenant thus marks an extension of the priesthood to all nations, even though the possibility for non-Israelites to be saved was already there. “What changed was the potency of the international invitation, not the reality of it.”[5] He is willing to describe his position as a sort of “Supersessionism,” with regard to the relationship of the church and Israel (he says, “the church is Israel now”[6]), but he qualifies this: “There is a real sense in which the faithful Jews of the Old Testament were the bud, and the Christian church is the flower. But there is also a sense in which reversals are taking place. These reversals are experienced by the faithless.”[7] Wilson argues that the baptized are now “the seed of Abraham”[8] and those who partake of the Lord’s Supper are now by doing so “claiming to be a part of the true Israel of God” regardless of their ancestry.[9]

Wilson presents rabbinic Jews as embodying many of the oral traditions that Jesus rejected.[10] On Judaism as it exists today, Wilson states,

“It is not the biblical faith with Jesus left out. Imagine a faithful Jew residing in Spain just before the apostle Paul’s visit there. What he believes, looking forward to a Messiah to come, and not knowing that He has come, is a very different proposition from a twenty-first century Jew, looking forward to a Messiah to come, and vigorously denying that Jesus was that Messiah. The situations are entirely different.”[11]

On the difference between Christians and rabbinic Jews,

“the difference is much wider than the fact that Christians have both the Old and New Testaments while the Jews have the Old Testament. Rather, the distinction is that Christians have the entire Word of God while the Jews have an Old Testament which they have in effect nullified with their traditions.”[12]

According to Wilson, the problematic teaching was incipient among the Pharisees of the time described in the Gospels and then grew from there: “the traditions that Jesus so violently rejected were the traditions of the first half of the Talmudic stream. Indeed, the Talmudic traditions of the elders were the reason why Jerusalem was judged so severely.”[13] I am not sure that the Temple establishment generally held to the traditions that the Pharisees judged Jesus for not following. Moreover I also think he somewhat overstates the connection between the Babylonian Talmud and the pharisaic traditions the Gospels record Jesus’ opposition to,[14] but agree there is a connection at least in terms of the general idea of a tradition outside the biblical text which led to bad conclusions. (I am not sure who is correct, but I note that by stating that the Mishnah included traditions going back to 200 B.C., [15] Wilson actually grants more to the Mishnah’s historical pedigree than many modern Jewish scholars would.) In any case, the Mishnah and Babylonian[16] Talmud are both important for modern Judaism. (Wilson does not get into the existence of Jews who did not accept the Talmud,[17] which may highlight a gap between the rabbis and the Judaism of the period described in the Gospels, but while non-rabbinic Jews were significant for a long time in some parts of Christendom[18] it is true that most Jews today either adhere to the Babylonian Talmud or are at least ancestrally connected to versions of Judaism which adhered to it.)

In describing aspects of rabbinic Judaism that are contrary to Christianity, Wilson lists a number of blasphemous, perverse, or odd things in the Talmud, but cautions:

“It must be remembered that the Talmud is such a morass of contradictory and confusing doctrines that we should not attribute to every rabbi the specific perversions or oddments of another rabbi. I am not saying that every conservative or Orthodox Jew would agree with such sentiments, or even that they are aware of their existence. The Talmud is an enormous sprawl of words, formed over the course of centuries. It was assembled by fallen human beings, and so is an amalgam of good sense, exegetical insights, weirdness, and perverseness.”[19]

He argues that, even so, the bad aspects of the Babylonian Talmud are still a problem for Jews because of the authority they ascribe it.[20]

Wilson notes that the Pharisees were closer to the early Christians than the Sadducees.[21] He says there are some good traditions which made it into the Talmud (particularly one interpretive tradition with regard to the Messiah).[22]

Wilson cautions his readers that scripture presents many reversals—people who were once persecuted can themselves or their descendants later embody the same spirit that was condemnable in their persecutors[23] (Christians should be careful in how they respond to past Jewish wrongs against Christians). In explaining the unusually high relative to population share representation of Jews in a number of endeavors, Douglas Wilson says, “Jews are a high performance people”[24] and points out this can be used for good or ill.

“Antisemites frequently point to the high preponderance of Jews among the Bolsheviks, say, or pornographers, or the Frankfurt School. What they don’t do is point to the counterpart phenomenon when we are talking about violin masters, or patent holders, or Nobel Prize winners, or members of the Austrian School of economics.”[25]

Elsewhere,

“Now if the dogma of egalitarianism has you by the throat, when confronted with hard statistics like this, your only explanation is that the Jews must be cheating. And so, with a very convenient maneuver, Jewish crimes can be blamed on the Jews and Jewish accomplishments can be blamed on the Jews also—on their ability to rig the system dishonestly. Jewish mothers are apparently pestering Nobel officials both near and far.

“But then you discover that they win 51 percent of the Wolf Foundation Prizes in Physics, 28 percent of the Max Planck Medailles, 38 percent of the Dirac Medals for Theoretical Physics, 37 percent of the Heineman Prizes for Mathematical Physics, and 53 percent of the Enrico Fermi Awards. Fiends, I tell you.”[26]

In explaining things like this, Wilson focuses on culture. He might have been thought to give a nod to genetics as a possible explanatory factor by citing Charles Murray on the number of high IQ Jewish individuals.[27] However shortly after citing Murray, Wilson says he’s talking about culture and frames the issue in a way which appears to oppose it to genetics;[28] Wilson then provides a short argument that IQ score differences between populations are the result of cultural differences.[29] As Christians our attitudes in many key ways should be same whether Jewish success is a result of culture or genetics or some combination of them. However, as a matter of describing the world we live in accurately, we should be aware that it is plausible that culture can, over time, influence genetics,[30] and that genetics has explanatory power with regard to the success of secularized Jews who have probably often stepped back from a significant chunk of their cultural heritage. Wilson associates some negative attitudes with saying such a difference is genetic, however I suspect he’d be willing to acknowledge that different ethnic groups sometimes have predispositions to different diseases without saying that means we must subscribe to some system which reifies ethnic superiority and inferiority (note that some people have argued that the same processes contributed both to disproportionate Ashkenazi Jewish risk for certain genetic diseases and to an unusually high average IQ among Ashkenazi[31]). Likewise Wilson presumably wouldn’t claim someone was necessarily engaging in anything malicious if he ascribed some personality or other cognitive trait to an inheritance from one side of his family or the other—given that ethnicities are often distinguished by different marriage patterns (with some differences between cultures in the weight traits are given when assessing a potential spouse), this by itself is a reason which militates against the plausibility of saying there could not be any average differences in cognitive traits.

Wilson argues that Jews are the subjects of a special promise that they will be converted in Romans 11 (and in an Appendix he collects together a number of quotes showing this belief was fairly widespread among notable Reformed Protestants). Wilson distinguishes between a hard and a soft supersessionist position, with a hard supercessionist defined as saying there is no such specific promise.

“when it comes to the salvation of individual Jews currently, we also agree that an unbelieving Jew is in the same position as an unbelieving Irishman, or Chinese, or Navajo. But the soft supersessionist holds that the Jews as a people are still part of God’s purpose and plan for the world. The gifts and calling of God are irrevocable. When the Jews are converted en masse, this will usher in the latter day glory,”[32]  

It is standard in Wilson’s works for him to relate other doctrines to eschatology and the fruitfulness of the kingdom of God within history. It’s an aspect of his writing that is not only hope-filled and often enjoyable to read, but often illuminating of the connections between different biblical texts. It’s not surprising he would apply it to this issue. Wilson believes that the world will be generally converted, “and the key that will unlock the global success of this effort will be the conversion of the Jews”.[33] Wilson presents a number of arguments against this being already fulfilled.[34]

One question that is worth asking, is, if Romans 11 means there is an outstanding specific promise to Jews, who are Jews? In a footnote[35] (and the issue was also mentioned in a recent discussion he had related to the subject matter of the book[36]) and in the Glossary at the end of the book, Wilson addresses one issue with regard to who is a Jew. In the Glossary he writes:

“A common assertion among antisemites is that the Ashkenazi Jews converted to Judaism a number of centuries after Christ, and thus there is not a drop of Abraham’s blood in their veins. This matters to them because over 90 percent of American Jews are Ashkenazi and around 50 percent of Israeli Jews are. A lot of what we identify as Jewish is actually Yiddish (Ashkenazi). However, it doesn’t really matter if the Ashkenazi are all descended from some Turkic tribe that converted to Judaism centuries ago. When Abraham was circumcised, his whole household (with hundreds of men in it, including his slaves) were also circumcised (Gen. 17:23). This means that a bunch of the first generation Jews—plank owners—did not have Abraham’s DNA in them either. It has always been a matter of covenant, not blood. So for Christians what this question should amount to is whether a tribe of people could bind themselves by covenant to the line of Hagar (Gal. 4:25).”[37]

This is one area where modern studies of genetics can help us to define the relevant question more precisely. Contrary to what some people had theorized,[38] Ashkenazi Jews[39] (like Sephardic Jews[40] and many though not all other groups identifying themselves as Jews[41]) have significant ancestry from biblical Jews (together with ancestry from other groups). The relevant question, if there is an ongoing promise in Romans 11, is if it applies more to modern groups who are descended from the Israelites of the Old Testament and the Jews interacted with in the New Testament and who identify as Jews today more than it applies to people who have similar or greater Israelite/Jewish ancestry who are not religiously Jewish (which is apparently true of a number of people in the near-east).[42] Should we suppose that there is a special promise to someone who has ancestry from biblical Israelites whose approach to the Old Testament is distorted because of the Babylonian Talmud, but that this promise does not apply to someone who also has ancestry from biblical Israelites but who is a member of another non-Christian religion? Wilson seems to say yes; I think this issue would require a bit more explanation to win me over (people from outside who joined the priestly people of God in the Old Testament appear to have intermarried with those physically descended from Abaraham, Isaac, and Jacob, I am not sure pointing to them settles the issue). Wilson himself references physical descent when explaining the status of Jews. He references Paul’s discussion of a covenant of Hagar[43] and says:

“Although the ethnic Jews are descended from Abraham physically, covenantally speaking, they are Ishmaelites. Summed up, they are in a covenant of bondage. However disciplined and hardworking they are, they do not know the taste of grace. They are driven, but not liberated. They are not children of the free woman, but rather through unbelief they have made themselves children of the slave concubine.”[44]

That said, this issue is less significant because Wilson does not believe what he says about Jews generally means we need to give any special preference to Israel as a polity. In the last few generations, a number of evangelicals have affirmed a theological duty to support Israel which creates a lot of issues that Wilson’s approach does not, and, in his approach, how we define Jew does not have the ramifications for how we treat non-Jews in that region that some other approaches might. Wilson, when discussing modern Israel’s history, is not supportive of the original Zionist project, he says that Israel has a right to defend itself today.

“Israel had no peculiar divine right to that territory, but they went there anyway, and bad things started to happen because Zionism as a doctrine was not a good idea. But in just the same way, Manifest Destiny was a piece of impudence cooked up by Americans during our ‘look at us go’ stage. I don’t hold to the doctrine of Manifest Destiny at all, along with the assumptions that were underneath it. And yet, here my house is, ensconced in Idaho, right in the middle of Manifest Destiny territory. I own that house, have a legitimate right to it, and would object in quite forceful terms if Nez Perce Indians were shooting rockets at it.”[45]

Wilson argues that even if Israel is sometimes hypocritical, the public statements of Israel and Hamas (with regard to the nature of who they intentionally target in carrying out this conflict) still give us a basis for distinguishing the relative rightness of their causes.[46] So, Wilson treats Israel rather like any other nation with a right to exist and protect itself. He is somewhat more pro-Israel relative to its opponents, but that’s a matter of the facts of the dispute as he sees them, not a matter of theological necessity. I suppose his approach might involve treating it as a special mission field, but he doesn’t address that issue.

            His focus is on the appropriate attitude of Americans trying to build up Christian nations and cultures.

“We need to be rebuilding Christendom, and doing so in a way that leaves the doors wide open for the Jews.
“One of the great failures of the first Christendom was at just this point, and it is something we have to address. We are called to provoke emulation (11:14); we are not called to be envious. “Just as the Jews leave an empty chair for Elijah at their Passover celebrations, so we need to leave a chair empty for them.”[47]

Wilson notes envy as a common factor in ethnic conflicts;[48] later in the book he argues that Christians developing a proper relationship to material blessings, enjoying them with an open hand, will be a factor in the conversion of the Jews.[49] Wilson describes America as endowed with amazing blessings, for which Americans have now become ungrateful, with an increase in antisemitism (something Americans had previously been relatively uninfluenced by[50]) being an effect of that ungratefulness and the associated envy.[51] Early in the book, Wilson distinguishes two type of idols, one which is simply an idol and must be destroyed,[52] and one “where natural and good gifts from our Heavenly Father have assumed a wrongful place in the heart loyalties of an individual.”[53] The latter type of idol is merely returned to its original and intended place in our affections and its proper use. He doesn’t make the connection explicit, but this might serve as a statement about his later chapters on America—he wishes to fight against any making of America an idol, while encouraging Americans to receive the gifts we have been given in a grateful way which facilitates (among other things) the conversion of the Jews.

            Wilson has succeeded in providing a positive vision. By doing so, he may help to call some people away from antisemitic ideologies who, in the absence of such a positive vision, might be attracted to them. However, he appears to expect people to make a connection between a positive vision of the conversion of the Jews and toleration of rabbinic Judaism now—this connection has sometimes been made historically, but not always.

He presents a number of Reformed theologians interpreting Romans 11 as prophesying a future conversion of the Jews.[54] The interaction between the Reformed and Jews is complicated. Kenneth Austin’s The Jews and the Reformation points out many of the complicated aspects (and pushback to tolerance from pastors).[55] Examples of an internal-to-Reformed theology support for tolerating Jews can be given, but I think it would be helpful to lay out the case while noting the complications a little bit more. In addition, Christians have sometimes connected the issue of eschatology and toleration in the direction Wilson infers (with future conversion leading to more support for toleration) and sometimes not. So, we can find Puritan leader William Prynne opposing the proposed readmission of the Jews to England by (among other arguments) criticizing the idea of a future general conversion.[56] We can find (among others) a medieval king of Castille referencing a prophesied future conversion of the Jews as a reason for protecting their right to do various things.[57] However, it is not always so straightforward. Some theologians believed the Jews would be converted in the future but also supported restricting their activities in a number of ways. Martin Bucer (who is among those Douglas Wilson references interpreting the Bible as teaching the future conversion of the Jews) advocated putting Jews in Hesse under a number of restrictions and was mentioned quite negatively by the leader of the Jewish community in the Holy Roman Empire as a result.[58]

            I think Wilson is right that the Reformed tradition is relatively friendly to Jews. I think he is correct that the attention the Reformed gave to the Old Testament was a factor laying the groundwork for relatively friendly attitudes towards Jews on the part of a number of Reformed.[59] However this point needs to be put on a firmer footing by not speaking as if it was true of all Reformed leaders who believed in a future conversion of the Jews. I think the case can be made, but if it doesn’t include the relevant nuance it sets itself up for someone producing a scattering of adverse quotes and not engaging with the argument. Perhaps Wilson should have organized the material quoted in Appendix 2 into a chapter. It won’t do to just note that the Reformed held to this eschatology, as best as I can tell many Christians in the later middle ages also held to a similar belief in the conversion of the Jews, and while we can find some instances of this being appealed to as a reason for tolerating them to some degree or other, the late middle ages as a whole is definitely not the model of Jewish-Christian relations[60] Wilson is advocating. Some aspects of the earlier middle ages[61] would perhaps provide a historical precedent for toleration of Jews within Christendom on the lines Wilson supports, but if Wilson thinks eschatology is a relevant way of explaining that it would still take some fleshing out.

In some cases, early Protestant hostility to Jews was connected to factual error (such as when William Prynne wrote that Jews had had a “constant, usual practise of crucifying children almost every year, in contempt and reproach of our crucified Saviour, by common consent”[62]), and in almost all cases appears tied to an approach to state involvement in religion that has been rejected by both Wilson and many of his detractors in principle or in practice. A good discussion to be had might be to show that Protestants were right to move towards religious tolerance of other Protestants and argue that this militates against certain approaches to Judaism that were advocated by a number of early Reformed. I made a lengthy argument on these issues in the course of an exceedingly long essay[63] interacting with Stephen Wolfe recently, and I am currently leaning towards going back and discussing the subject at slightly more length in the future. Dealing with all the historical issues probably merits a full treatise, and I realize a historical treatise is not the intent of Wilson’s book here, but a few pages outlining his vision of how to resolve these issues would have been helpful. I felt a similar gap in another recent book of Wilson’s, Mere Christendom, with regard to a related issue–that book’s defense of free speech. The fact that this issue implicates several things Wilson considers of value adds weight to the need for Wilson to address areas where he differs with some earlier Reformed thinkers on the scope of religious liberty and explain how he evaluates changes that took place in the Reformed tradition on this issue and why, and to what degree, he thinks they were good changes.

            A distinct issue is the institutional weight that should be put on the interpretation of Romans 11. What Wilson himself describes as something that people in an “intra-mural debate among postmillennialists”[64] hold different views about doesn’t seem suitable to be the litmus test to act as a guardrail to keep anti-Jewish ideologues out of the CREC—a denomination which allows a wide variety of historic Protestant views, with (positively in my view) allowance for paedocommunion as a distinguishing element relative to many other Reformed churches.[65] While many in the CREC are strongly in favor of postmillennialism it seems odd to use language which appears to mandate not only postmillennialism but a certain variety of it even if that is not how it is interpreted (why create an interpretive problem), as Wilson notes in an appendix “As a general rule, the Reformed have not established eschatological doctrines as a point of division”.[66] Better to target antisemitic scapegoating ideologies in a more direct and focused way (and Romans 11 remains relevant to that task even without constraining the range of interpretations to ones which hold to a future-to-us mass conversion of the Jews as being in view there). As far as the substance of Wilson’s arguments, I lean towards the view that there is a future fulfillment of the promise of the conversion of ethnic Israel in Romans 11, but I am skeptical of tying it so closely to the second coming[67] or triggering a defined “last stage of human history”[68] as Wilson does. I don’t think Romans 11 necessarily teaches a mass conversion as opposed to the gradual conversion of the Jews over a long period of time. I agree with Wilson that when “Paul says ‘boast not against the branches.’ This is the word that antisemites everywhere need to take to heart”,[69] but I think this admonition can be taken to heart without agreeing with the specific interpretation of the verses Wilson provides, though it is fair for Wilson to make his case for how the two go together as he does over the next few pages.

Even if one affirms one of the other plausible interpretations of Romans 11, one can still, with strong grounding in one’s interpretation of the text, say with Wilson, “Antisemitism is therefore nothing less than disobedience to an express apostolic command.”[70] While his interpretation is defensible and, given that Wilson believes it, it is fine that his own argument incorporates it, institutionally, Wilson seems to be asking this doctrine to bear more weight than it needs to. It is true that the Westminster Confession of Faith references a future calling of the Jews.[71] However, the Knox Presbytery statement on antisemitism goes a bit further: “We believe the conversion of the Jews is key to the success of Christ’s Great Commission, and it is incumbent upon us to pray and labor toward that end.”[72] I think the institutional guardrail can be a bit more narrowly defined and more targeted towards ideologies which scapegoat Jews.

In short, Wilson’s book provides a positive vision for a friendly (or at least open to his point of view) audience, but does not wrestle with how to resolve discrepancies between Wilson’s views and some of the authorities he cites. I believe this can and should be done. I think it would be a quite superficial appropriation of the middle ages and reformation to start integrating anti-Judaic statements and laws from those eras willy nilly without taking into account demonstrable problems with those statements and laws. However, we should show this by looking at the sources and showing the reasons for not appropriating the opinions we think in error. That said, despite the noted areas of disagreement, I appreciate Wilson’s attempt at a balanced portrayal of Judaism and his positive vision in this matter.

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[1] Douglas Wilson, American Milk and Honey: Antisemitism, The Promise of Deuteronomy, And the True Israel of God, Pages 6-7.

[2] Relevant to this, he defines antisemitism as the idea that “that Jews are uniquely malevolent and destructive in their cultural, economic, and political influence in the world.” Page 152.

[3] Page 64-66.

[4] Pages 84-85.

[5] Page 82.

[6] Page 95.

[7] Page 93.

[8] Page 94.

[9] Pages 95, 99.

[10] Page 48.

[11] Page 47.

[12] Page 51.

[13] Pages 47-49.

[14] Page 49. Compare to Daniel Boyarin, Border Lines: The Partition of Judaeo-Christianity. Jacob Neusner, Four Stages of Rabbinic Judaism. David C. Kraemer, A History of the Talmud. (Though I have not read Gary North’s The Judeo-Christian Tradition: A Guide for the Perplexed, Wilson’s discussion of negative things about the Talmud seems like it could have used a greater variety of sources than that one.)

[15] Page 48.

[16] He explains his reasons for focusing on the Babylonian Talmud and not the other Talmud as follows: “There are two versions of the Talmud—the Babylonian Talmud and the Jerusalem or Palestinian Talmud. The latter is smaller and contains earlier material. The Babylonian Talmud is the one usually referred to as it received better editing, and the subjects it addresses are less parochial or local. The Jerusalem Talmud has not had nearly the same impact as the Babylonian, so for the sake of space we will focus on the latter.” Pages 47-48.

[17] See David C. Kraemer, A History of the Talmud, Pages 186-187.

[18] See Andrew Sharf, Byzantine Jewry: from Justinian to the Fourth Crusade.

[19] Page 50.

[20] Page 50.

[21] Pages 52-54.

[22] Pages 54-57.

[23] Pages 69-75.

[24] Page 20.

[25] Pages 156-157.

[26] Page 22.

[27] Page 21.

[28] Pages 22-23.

[29] Pages 23-24. Wilson risks painting himself into a corner with regard to some of the negative things he says about a genetic explanation, insofar as there’s already evidence for changes in frequencies of notable traits over the course of human history and the evidence can be expected to increase both in amount and in specificity.

[30] I talk about this as part of my discussion of ethnicity in my just-posted A Booklet-length Response and Interaction with Stephen Wolfe’s Case for Christian Nationalism  https://ibperry.wordpress.com/2023/11/07/a-booklet-length-response-and-interaction-with-stephen-wolfes-case-for-christian-nationalism/

[31] Gregory Cochran, A Natural History of Ashkenazi Intelligence https://web.mit.edu/fustflum/documents/papers/AshkenaziIQ.jbiosocsci.pdf

[32] Page 100.

[33] Page 11.

[34] 104-106.

[35] Page 152.

[36] Right Wing Twitter vs Doug Wilson (feat. Andrew Isker), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sVp6eWVYrs

[37] Pages 152-153.

[38] Arthur Koestler, The Thirteenth Tribe.

[39] Razib Khan, Ashkenazi Jewish genetics: a match made in the Mediterranean, How and when did the Ashkenazim come to be? Razib Khan’s Unsupervised Learning, September 19^th, 2021. https://www.razibkhan.com/p/ashkenazi-jewish-genetics-a-match

[40] Razib Khan, The eternal wanderers: Sephardic Jewish genetics and culture How the scattering of the Sephardim influenced Jews across the world, Razib Khan’s Unsupervised Learning, October 8^th, 2021.https://www.razibkhan.com/p/the-eternal-wanderers-sephardic-jewish

[41] Razib Khan, Under pressure: the paradox of the diamond What obscure Jewish subgroups teach us about Ashkenazi and Sephardic flourishing, Razib Khan’s Unsupervised Learning, October 8^th, 2021.https://www.razibkhan.com/p/under-pressure-the-paradox-of-the

[42] https://twitter.com/MiroCyo/status/1712260642089160765

[43] Page 100

[44] Page 101.

[45] Page 40.

[46] Pages 42-46.

[47] Pages 117-118.

[48] Pages 16-17. Cf. 156: “Tension between ethnic groups is frequently a competitive tension, and this should always be remembered.”

[49] Chapter 9: Deuteronomic Blessings

[50] Pages 148.

[51] Pages 129-139, 148-149.

[52] Page 8.

[53] Page 9.

[54] Appendix 2 The Historic Reformed Position

[55] Kenneth Austin, The Jews and the Reformation, at e.g. Pages 177-180.

[56] William Prynne, A Short Demurrer to the Jews long discontinued Remitter into England, Page 81. https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A56206.0001.001/1:3?rgn=div1;view=fulltextPage

[57] I.e. Jonathan Ray, The Sephardic Frontier: The “Reconquista” and the Jewish Community in Medieval Iberia, Pages 53-54 provides a quote where this was referenced by the King of Castille when protecting Jews in the exercise of various rights.

[58] See e.g. Debra Kaplan, Beyond Expulsion: Jews, Christians, and Reformation Strasbourg, Pages 153-154.

[59] Pages 139-140.

[60] See e.g. William Chester Jordan, The French Monarchy and the Jews: From Philip Augustus to the Last Capetians which includes some of the negative aspects.

[61] Bernard S. Bachrach, Early Medieval Jewish Policy in Western Europe.

[62] William Prynne, A Short Demurrer to the Jews long discontinued Remitter into England, Pages 32-33 https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A56206.0001.001/1:2?rgn=div1;view=fulltext

[63] A Booklet-length Response and Interaction with Stephen Wolfe’s Case for Christian Nationalism  https://ibperry.wordpress.com/2023/11/07/a-booklet-length-response-and-interaction-with-stephen-wolfes-case-for-christian-nationalism/

[63] Gregory Cochran, A Natural History of Ashkenazi Intelligence

[64] Page 102.

[65] Along with some other distinguishing factors such as (in my view, unfortunately) a stronger-than-many-Reformed-denominations commitment to Young Earth Creationism.

[66] Page 161.

[67] Page 107.

[68] Page 108.

[69] Page 111.

[70] Page 115.

[71] Pages 104, 153-154, 162.

[72] Page 151.

A Booklet-length Response and Interaction with Stephen Wolfe’s Case for Christian Nationalism

A Booklet-length Response and Interaction with Stephen Wolfe’s Case for Christian NationalismDownload

On Whether Jesus and Hitler are in the Same Condition

Around this time of year, in the context of the countries in which Christianity was historically culturally the mainstream at one point, even people who disbelieve in Christianity often wish to appropriate some of the Christian story. At least, some of it, an innocent child, gifts, and peace among humans, are attractive even among post-Christian westerners. Salvation from sin is not so much in view for many such people–but salvation from unkindness or meanspiritedness or sadness is attractive enough for people to enjoy watching a film version of A Christmas Carol or It’s a Wonderful Life. At one level, I don’t want to complain about that and am happy to share in these things with people who disagree.

However, the context in which we put these things is different in some key respects. We might have joined together in some or other aspect of the Christmas celebration, we might both think these aforementioned stories beautiful pictures of redemption, but for believers the Advent which preceded it both memorializes the coming into the world of the “Beauty so Ancient and so New”[1] who made the stars and also points our minds towards His future coming to make the whole world new. Each Christmas we’re encouraged to recognize Him now as the Sun of Righteousness who offers “Light and Life” to all.[2] Someone like George Bailey or Ebenezer Scrooge might have hope of not just learning to love their fellow men in the present, but also of continuing in that love throughout all eternity in the presence of the Creator shining on them all in a way that the Sun only dimly pictures.

As much as the seasonal partaker in Christian holidays may think the Christian story and Christian-influenced stories picture opposition to evils, in the end, for many non-Christian views (I except some such as the Islamic) the person the holiday is named after, and all practitioners of the evils one might take it to symbolize the overcoming of, end in the same place. For example, any two real world counterparts of Mr. Potter and George Bailey, in the materialist view, will both in the end die and know nothing and eventually both be forgotten.

Or, to take a real world example which is in our culture used as one of the primary symbols of evil in the world, Adolf Hitler. Modern Christians and non-Christians both use him as a symbol of evil. For the Christian, his actions (barring some unknown turning away from and repentance of them which appears unlikely to have happened considering the circumstances) show an alienation from God which we have reason to believe will send him to a final abode which might be described figuratively and perhaps literally as one of burning darkness. Now, non-Christians may believe that “darkness” describes his ultimate state as well (minus, if they are secular materialists, the punishment implied by “burning”); insofar as darkness means absence of fellowship with others there is a similarity with the Christian point of view.

Let’s think about that for a moment.

People use use Christmas to embody peace, love, joy, and hope, without believing in the Christian theological underpinnings of those things. However, if the theological claims of Christmas (and Easter) are not true, then Jesus himself would be in the same condition as Hitler–darkness.

According to the most widely accepted modern science, the material world is naturally decaying. Some day our sun and every sun will burn out, every atom separate from every other atom, every piece of every atom lose connection with every other sub-atomic particle. Then in the entire universe there will (if the natural strength of the elements is allowed to run its course) be no light at all and only darkness forever.

Now, I don’t think that is a complete story, but let’s not run away from it too quickly. In the end, each one of us, whether through cancer, a car accident, human malice, or whatever, will lose the ability to keep living in this world. If the elements are allowed to run their course, every atom of us will (likely after being recycled through other creatures for a few hundred million years) eventually fade into the universal darkness. (An alternative but currently less popular theory is that the elements of the world will crash back into each-other and everything in our current universe will be destroyed that way before exploding again and forming a new universe which is otherwise discontinuous from our own, which has similar implications for the argument here.)

There’s a question of who you are trusting who could possibly save you in that moment. The material forces themselves, if we rule out any arguments they are governed by any overarching Intelligence, will prove quite unable to save anyone. In such a view, whether you lived like Hitler or like Jesus, the darkness will take you forever.

Some may object that the opening was too provocative, that we should just live and let live and (though this likely won’t be said out-loud most of the time) not care so much. In many such cases, implying that we shouldn’t care so much would be to imply that Jesus and Hitler are in fact in the same condition, but that it doesn’t matter. Someone might complain that they do not think Jesus did anything miraculous, but that doesn’t mean he’s in the same condition as Hitler. Why not? I think Jesus is in a different condition than Hitler because I believe he rose from the dead and is the Word of God clothed in humanity, but for a run of the mill post-Christian secularist, there is not some judge who might give a better eternal state to a Jewish carpenter than to a mass murdering tyrant.

One possible complaint is that Christianity leads to similar results by believing people can repent–but according to Christian teaching repentant evildoers are by God’s grace aligned with the good and not with their evil deeds. By contrast, the starless darkness to which the natural elements are tending does not, considered by itself in isolation from any consideration of providence, care whether one turned away evil deeds or went to one’s death encouraging others to participate in them. (It should also be noted that in Christian teaching there is typically an idea that there are different levels of reward, so someone who repents on his or her death bed and is saved and someone who follows the Lord his or her whole life will quite likely receive different levels of honor even though both saved.)

Someone might complain I am grabbing onto two culturally resonant people (Jesus and Hitler), but that there are cultures for which these people do not have such a resonance. Alright. Just consider a generic “good person”, or a generic “normal person”, or a generic “a bit dishonest but not that bad a person” and compare their situation to some unnamed mass murdering tyrant. When the last star has run out of fuel is there going to be anyone left to judge between them?

One might jump ahead and warn of the danger of being Judged by Ultimate Reality and found to have been an opponent of that Reality (as we are reminded of by the pleading and awful double resonance of “Who May Abide the Day of His Coming?”[3] with regard to both the first century and the final judgment). However, talk of burning darkness is likely, by many post-Christian westerners, to be used to juggle the burden of proof such that various elements of Christian hope are kept by these post-Christians–and various things derived from some subset of Christian thought, like human rights, are even, their origins forgotten, used to attack Christianity–but the issue of eternal death made to appear as something that is solely a matter of claims made by Christians, which can be dismissed while these other things are kept. Some belief systems teach there is no judgment of burning darkness to be feared, but they do leave open the issue of the darkness. In advanced western societies we do not encounter death so often as many of our ancestors would have (people are statistically less likely to die in front of us than in the past, or so I understand), so it may be easier for modern westerners to act as if they don’t have to worry about it–but everyone who isn’t worrying about it is going to die too. So, considering that you live in a universe in which every star is dying, who or what are you trusting in to save you from the darkness?

Now, there are some non-Christian belief systems which do attempt to address such questions, but they often require a level of commitment that is unappealing to a typical post-Christian westerner (I am not attempting in this essay to refute high commitment non-Christian religions like, say, Hasidic Judaism).

Someone might say they don’t need to trust in anything, they just accept the darkness is going to take them and live till it does. In reality, no one fully lives like this. The arguments used to attack Christianity by post-Christian westerners are very often developed from complex belief systems which were only able to develop within a context provided by Christianity. Modern science itself was only able to breakthrough to a situation of Great Divergence-level massive accumulated progress in a culturally Christian context. People claim that the universe will end in starless darkness but live their day to day lives appealing to human rights which were justified during the period this mode of articulating things became dominant, even by non-Christians, in terms of “nature and nature’s God”. Post-Christian westerners will often want to claim a bit of the awe of the transcendent (a higher purpose, etc.) during this or that holiday while then selectively claiming that everything is a matter of random chance at other times. When someone dies some vague gesture towards a higher purpose for human life will often be made–as if somehow the darkness won’t win in the end. While people differ and there are some people who are relatively willing to take unpleasant positions (and Christians should engage with such arguments), most post-Christian westerners are not simply following evidence and then accepting an unpleasant conclusion, rather, for various reasons they are using an edited version of the Christian worldview which denies several of the things which make it (even the parts they accept) coherent. One cannot coherently claim that empirical study of the world proves it is meaningless and hopeless and then place one’s hope in a meaning to be derived from empirical science. Everyone lives at least some of the time like it is true that there is some source of “Joy to the World”[4] external to ourselves, why not actually believe that and commit to be the sort of people who strive to live lives consistent with that Joy?

[1] https://epistleofdude.wordpress.com/2019/05/14/a-comparison-of-different-translations-of-augustines-confessions-late-have-i-loved-you/

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGw-VZC_oDo

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mefxlLpuq_E

[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRhcgBFnBAc

A Brief Note on Reforming Republican Democracies

A basic problem in modern Republican Democracies is a lack of connection between investment in society and the franchise. I’ve been concerned about this issue for years, posting on my blog now because it may get attention at this time (and, as I write this on the eve of the U.S. presidential election, it’s perhaps less likely to be taken as just commentary on the specific election than if I initially posted during the aftermath). Two problems that flow from modern western franchise practices are the lack of a stable mechanism to bond the electorate into a sufficiently common political culture, and the lack of connection to the common defense. I’ll discuss both of these issues here and offer some suggested solutions. Though I don’t expect the proposals here to be adopted easily under present circumstances, I hope suggesting them may help to alert some to the problem, and also move people who have already noticed the problem away from some possible reactions that are unhealthy, non-constructive, or sub-optimal.

With some narrow exceptions (children of embassy staff), anyone born in the U.S. who has attained the age of 18 is automatically allowed to vote. Many other countries (particularly outside of the Western Hemisphere), are not this open, but there is a pattern in western liberal democracies of awarding the franchise without any particular investment in society, provided some minimum connection to the country exists. The current U.S. practice is at the liberal end of the spectrum (giving automatic citizenship to children of people in the country illegally so long as the children are born in the U.S., which many other countries would not do), but still, if someone above a certain minimum age has citizen parents in a liberal democracy, we can generally assume the person is allowed to vote there.

To many, this seems very tolerant. However, when we think about what voting is, it becomes apparent that this approach may actually undermine trust between citizens and increase the political temperature on a variety of issues. Starship Troopers is one bit of pop culture where an alternative system is envisioned (both in an interesting novel and in low quality film), and hits upon one crucial point–voting is an exercise of force (stated more mildly, when electing, say, a legislator, one is giving another sanction for determining how society will use force).

Given that voting is connected to society’s use of force, we should consider the franchise very seriously. Under the current system, there is very little to keep voters from becoming ever more fractured unless bound together via a restrictive immigration system and or a government program of education.

The universal franchise adds to the political fraught-ness of immigration. One party can attempt to keep people out when it perceives they will shift the political balance against it, another may attempt to let them in–or parties may attempt to tailor the immigrants coming in to who will support them electorally.

Public education, if done as a centralized program, is potentially a very unstable means of binding a country together. If a political group takes over the educational bureaucracy that was expected to be a force drawing citizens together, it could potentially shift educational policy to support its own ideology regardless of whether that ideology has much consistency with the original mission of the centralized educational structure. The point here is that mere centralization of education does not do much to ensure continuity and indeed could undermine it more quickly than decentralized education.

Universal suffrage is thus left relying on an institution likely to be fought over–centralized education, or a policy of immigration restrictionism that some party will likely see it in its interest to oppose.

A problem with universal suffrage more directly resulting from the nature of voting as force is a free rider problem. Someone can claim to be morally opposed to all use of force, and still vote. Someone can live an unhealthy lifestyle that leaves them completely unfit to, in an emergency, either aid the police in enforcing laws or the military in defending the realm, and still vote. Such voters may chose policies in line with their unsustainable ideologies and lifestyles, all without having to give any evidence that they are willing to sacrifice for the common defense.

The free rider problem is more dangerous than people realize. It perhaps makes society more likely to enter into situations which are dangerous (say, recklessly entering into foreign wars at the behest of voters who never gave due consideration to possibly having to fight in them). It also makes it possible for people who are not personally capable of contributing to the common defense to disproportionately cluster into some voting blocks and not others, with a resulting potential for a mismatch between electoral power and defense capabilities which would provide circumstances likely to result in a civil war or other major internal conflict. This problem might be remedied with several levels of rigor. One would be requiring some civil defense training as a requirement for the franchise (perhaps this could include some public goods likely to be undersupplied in an emergency such as first aid, as well as basic defense requirements like the ability to shoot). Another would be going the route made famous in some circles by Starship Troopers and requiring military service as a prerequisite for the franchise. My preferred route is a combination–civil defense training for the lower house and military service as a prerequisite to vote in senatorial elections.

The issue of cultural fragmentation is in some respects more difficult. The solution I propose could, when stated at a high level of generality, be used to promote harmful things, and would be difficult to implement properly: Require tests in order to get the right to vote. In the contemporary U.S. the easiest and more politically plausible route would be to require all voters to take the exam naturalized citizens must take. I would prefer a more rigorous series of literature tests, as well as several math tests (at least an algebra and a geometry test, and probably one more). Math tests would be included to make the literature tests more palatable to people with a STEM aptitude as well as to help the testing system serve to incentivize the education of the citizenry. With this sort of system, political groups would be incentivized to fund schools; different political parties might be incentivized to go out of their way to provide funding to schools for different disadvantaged groups, but on a society-wide level this would incentivize charitable support for education for everyone.

As far as the actual literature tests, I suggest a series of 100 question multiple choice tests on different sets of literature. Multiple choice so as to as much as possible remove the political biases of the graders from being an issue. This is where the system gets politically difficult to implement, because people would have wildly different views of which works to include, and to avoid it being a constant issue of contention the sets would need to be put into a given realm’s Constitution (in order to assist in forming and giving direction to a polity, the tests would need to have some degree or other of insulation from the political winds of the day, so some sort of supermajority and concurrent majority requirements for changes are needed).

This system seems better than tying the franchise to property or wealth because basic civic institutions can allow someone who has not invested much in the health of a polity to become wealthy by living within it. Not that making money is bad, but it is not the best measure of investment in the political culture or defense of a polity.

Realistically, even if a system like the one I have outlined becomes popularized, it is unlikely that the U.S. would be the first place to adopt such. I think, with the prospect of colonies on Mars and other celestial bodies within the lifetimes of people alive today, some such colony is likely to adopt a system like this before the U.S. does. It provides a ready solution to determine who should govern a colony in which a number of people are going in or out for economic purposes–the colony would be governed by those willing to invest the time into passing its chosen test system.

In the context of the U.S. and many western democracies, it might take a major social crisis for such a system to be adopted. But, given benefits like making immigration less contentious, some country might want to experiment with some variant of this. I say it could make immigration less contentious because the system requires effort to join in–any immigrant that made it through the system would have at least been exposed to some books which might familiarize him or her with the culture of the new country. Together with the civil defense or military service requirement this might help to encourage purely economic migrants to remain in the country without seeking to govern it. Building a signal that one isn’t merely an economic migrant into the franchise system might improve the perception of citizens of immigrant background (with all having passed the same tests and volunteered or at least taken time to train to protect the realm in the event of emergency). With these requirements, economic migrants might be allowed to move more freely with less of a worry of their effects on the local political system.

It would be difficult to get the U.S. to pass constitutional amendments to adopt a rigorous version of this system. The burden might be (very slightly) eased by having the amendments impose a de minimis national test involving some works closely connected to or very influential on the U.S. in its early founding history, and authorize the states to devise and require a certain number of additional tests for the franchise in each state. This seems unlikely in the short term.

As I write this, I early voted and I anticipate that several of the candidates I voted in favor of for key offices in the coming election will win. The concerns here are not focused on specific contemporary elections–though I do think they are relevant to this election. Imagine that a system like the one I’ve described had been in place the last several election cycles–it is not just that different candidates would have won, but the sets of candidates produced and making it through to the final vote would likely be different. There are serious problems of fragmentation in modern liberal democracies, and serious problems of lack of investment in the polity, and this is a proposal for addressing these issues.

Judicial Electoral College: A Modest Proposal Regarding the Selection of the Supreme Court

Ian Burke Perry

People sometimes complain that I and other conservative constitutionalists treat the Constitution as inspired. Now, I do think following the Constitution provides a relatively neutral way to resolve disputes: looking at what we agreed to in the Constitution is a way to impose a check on our personal views. It is also true that I do think the founders were wiser than our current elected leadership, and am thus leery of modifying the Constitution, even via the amendment process. However, the Constitution isn’t beyond improvement. So, here’s one flaw: Presidents pick Supreme Court justices.

Can you imagine someone who would have a tolerably good foreign policy but not make wise decisions regarding judicial appointments? Having to select one person to deal with executive issues and who also will fill judicial vacancies makes for worse elections and less-logical decisions on the part of the electorate. Some voters don’t care about judges and do care a lot about foreign policy, some care about domestic policy almost to the exclusion of foreign policy. Executive policy and judicial policy are not the same thing. By having us select one person who will help to direct one and control much of the selection of the other, the Constitution makes it more difficult for us to carefully deliberate together on either.

I do not agree with the Democrats who complain about poor conservatives voting against their economic interests because of social issues. But, if we can separate these social and economic issues somewhat, we might be able to compromise, and each get a bit more of what we want. At least, by removing fears of judicial activism as a factor in selecting Senators and the President, you can focus better on your economic pitch—and can defend your social and economic views in legislative races with less of a fear that a “progressive” Senate will be able to use judicial appointments as a backdoor way to impose its views without a direct vote.

There is a fundamental incentive problem with letting the President pick judges, even with the requirement of Senate confirmation. The President has an incentive to pick judges who will support his or her agenda. Would it not be better if the judges who were going to review the executive’s decisions on, say, the treatment of prisoners, were not themselves selected by the executive? Further, many social and economic decisions are in our constitutional structure intended to be made at the state level—letting the rest of the national government pick judges creates a structure which will tend to select judges that favor the interest of the federal government over those of the states. Letting citizens pick the judges through a separate process could help to make the selection process less biased towards judges who favor the Senate and Presidency over the state governments.

Further, separating the selection process of judges from that of the Senate and Presidency helps to allow for more rational deliberation on the part of the electorate. Wouldn’t it be good if voters who don’t care about judges didn’t have to pick the person who selects the judges? That is, a voter who cares about what the executive or Senate does but who doesn’t care much about the judiciary doesn’t have a way to leave that choice to more concerned citizens—so such a voter, even if not particularly supportive of judicial activism, might be more likely to pick someone with their desired executive or senatorial characteristics even if that candidate is likely to pick judges who pursue the senate or executive’s policies via judicial means. I think a greater separation between judicial selection and the selection of the legislative and executive branches would help to take away some of the structural spurs to judicial activism.

I suggest that during non-presidential election years, a set of judicial electors be selected, with each state getting the same number as they get for the electoral college during presidential years. These electors would be charged with filling Supreme Court and other judicial vacancies during a four-year term. Now, there are additional details which would need to be ironed out—such as whether to have all the electors vote on district and circuit judges, or just the states (or regions) concerned—but I think that regardless of whether there was such a split in how electors chose judges, an electoral college system would lead to better judges than we currently have.

Further, it would allow presidential elections to focus on executive issues—wouldn’t fewer people be stressed out this election if we didn’t have to worry about Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton selecting the next Supreme Court Justice? This would also avoid judicial confirmation fights in the Senate and leave such conflicts to people selected to focus on them—and, as noted above, we might get to focus on the remaining duties of Senators better as we select them. Wouldn’t both the upper house of our legislature and our executive be improved if people didn’t have to worry about the Supreme Court (and couldn’t use it as an excuse) when confronted with an otherwise undesirable candidate?

[Originally Published via The Banterer, November 5th, 2016.]

[Photo Credit: By Duncan Lock, Dflock – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=94554 ]

Calvin’s Augustinianism (2007)

I wrote this as an assignment to get Honors Credit for Dr. Berry Hankins’ World History 1400-1750 course back in the fall 2007 semester at Baylor (this is dated December 11th), I fixed some typos and grammar issues but otherwise left the text alone.

Calvin’s Augustinianism

John Calvin is widely looked upon as either the heir of Augustine, or as one of the more preeminent examples of protestant theological innovators. With regard to the subject of predestination, this has in some ways limited discussion of the degree of continuity between the two. Roman Catholics have a tendency not to emphasize the areas of agreement between the two men. Calvinists, taught to think of predestination as a system of beliefs that logically follow from one another, often appear to miss some nuances in Augustine’s thought that illustrate a different understanding of how predestination is worked out in time than they advocate. Broader evangelicalism, though it typically accepts only part of Calvinist teachings, does not object to the aspect of Calvinism that Augustine appears to have differed with, and thus evangelicals may miss the relevant nuance of Augustine’s thought.

Calvinism, according to the widely noted formulation, teaches total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace, and perseverance of the saints. My discussion in this paper will largely concern how the last point relates to the first, second, and fourth.

Calvin’s opening thesis is that free will with regard to salvation was the property of Adam, but that his sin darkened the minds of men so that free will as it originally existed no longer exists.[i] In this assertion, Calvin was in line with Augustine who taught that man by “free will, could fall, but could not also rise.”[ii] Additionally, Calvin was in line with Augustine’s followers who declared in Canon One of the 6^th century Council of Orange that, “If anyone denies that it is the whole man, that is, both body and soul, that was “changed for the worse” through the offense of Adam’s sin, but believes that the freedom of the soul remains unimpaired and that only the body is subject to corruption, he is deceived by the error of Pelagius,” and also in Canon Seven of that document,

“If anyone affirms that we can form any right opinion or make any right choice

which relates to the salvation of eternal life, as is expedient for us, or that we can

be saved, that is, assent to the preaching of the gospel through our natural powers

without the illumination and inspiration of the Holy Spirit, who makes all men

gladly assent to and believe in the truth, he is led astray by a heretical spirit, and

does not understand the voice of God who says in the Gospel, “For apart from me

you can do nothing””[iii]

It is worth digressing for a moment to note that neither Calvin or Augustine, in attacking the absolute freedom of the will, supposed that people who were outside of the Christian faith were necessarily incapable of doing any good actions or necessarily had no good ideas; rather, “heathen writers” might still have some idea of truth which could be enjoyed by a believer;[iv] it is in “Divine things”[v] that we require God’s special help in order for our natural knowledge of truth to be directed rightly according to Calvin. Thus people in the Augustinian tradition do not assert that the ill will given by Adam to his descendents does not preclude any particular “good” actions on the part of those who are not saved; rather, they understand that there is a residual desire of investigating truth (even though it is crippled by sin)[vi] which allows the pagans to get some things right, or at least (according to a harsher formulation) that the pagans sometimes do particular good acts, but for wrong motivations.[vii]

Calvin and Augustine agreed on the natural inability of man to come to God on his own without grace; however this itself leaves open the question of whether they had the same beliefs about the possibility of rejecting grace. It is possible to argue that the gift of grace itself merely allows for the possibility of salvation, and many people argue that grace is given to all men, thus restoring all men to the status of freedom believed to have been possessed by Adam at the beginning of time to choose good or evil. However, Augustine’s agreement with Calvin goes deeper than the question of Adam’s inability.

In his work, On the Predestination of the Saints Augustine repeatedly asks who it is that makes one man to differ from another in regard to spiritual things. His answer is that God’s gift of faith is not given to all. In response to the question which would naturally follow, namely: “why He delivers one rather than another,” Augustine simply cities Romans to argue that God’s ways are unknowable.[viii] This is all in line with what John Calvin taught over a thousand years later in his Institutes, when he said such things as “those whom the Lord does not favor with the government of his Spirit, he abandons, to the influence of Satan.”[ix] In both writers the natural tendency of man is understood to be downward, so that if God does not restore them with his Spirit, they naturally rebel against him; in both this is combined with an understanding that God’s grace is what makes believers different from unbelievers.

Given this degree of similarity, the question arises as to what dissimilarity, if any, there is between Calvin and Augustine on the issue of predestination. We may start to resolve the question by looking at Calvin’s doctrine of the certainty of salvation. For Calvin, those who are saved have a subjective certainty of salvation granted to them by the witness of the Holy Spirit. Calvin specifically attacks those who would argue that only our present state with God can be guessed at, but not our “final perseverance.”[x] (For the contrary position, see the Twelfth Chapter of the Council of Trent’s Sixth Session.[xi]) For Calvin, the very nature of the promises to believers indicates that those who have the seed of true faith planted in them are confirmed to persevere in the same faith; for him the confidence of the Apostle that God who “has begun a good work” in believers will complete it indicates that salvation is entirely in God’s hands.[xii] So comprehensively does he interpret the idea that it is all up to God that he argues that the believer does not have the option of rejecting the call, but will necessarily “persevere to the end.”[xiii]

The question then arises as to why there are people who profess faith but later fall away from their profession. On this point Calvin seems to waver a little bit, and uses expressions that seem almost contradictory at times (for contrast see his straight forward attack on idolatry and icondulism earlier in the work). Calvin says that “none are illuminated to faith, or truly feel the efficacy of the gospel, but such as are preordained to salvation.”[xiv] However, he immediately after this notes that observation indicates people who are not predestined to salvation do in fact experience emotions “similar to” the ones the elect experience. Calvin argues that these people have felt a type of faith, but that it is not the same type that people posses who have been united to Jesus by the Holy Spirit in a saving way. It is by an “inferior operation of the Spirit” that the reprobate feel the shadow of grace, even if they don’t truly posses it in a saving way. Calvin says that the reprobate who perceive this shadow of grace receive are presented with a “present mercy,” but do not have either the solid “effect and enjoyment,” or the lasting root of faith that the elect have.[xv]

Now, given that book two of Augustine’s On The Predestination of the Saints is known as On The Gift of Perseverance, we might suppose that Augustine had the same understanding of perseverance and grace that John Calvin did. Indeed, Augustine specifically argues that those who have been granted the gift of perseverance will persevere to the end.[xvi] Likewise, Augustine argues that the very fact that people pray for perseverance in the faith indicates that it is God’s gift.[xvii] So, both Calvin and Augustine agree that the division between belief and unbelief is established by the call of God’s grace, and both believe that perseverance is itself a gift of grace.

The question remaining to our enquiry is whether or not Augustine shared Calvin’s understanding of the distinction between Christians who persevere in the faith and those who fall away. For Calvin, there definitely seems to be very much a qualitative distinction (even though he does seem to be “hedging” a bit with the language he uses in places). So, the question requires us to see if Augustine held to a qualitative distinction between the persevering and non-persevering Christians or only a “chronological” distinction (i.e. a distinction in terms of the time the quality of being a believer was possessed, versus a distinction in the type of quality possessed).

When we read the first chapter of Augustine’s work on perseverance, we come to a possible answer. Augustine tells us that perseverance is not like other virtues, in that someone might fall away from a virtue like patience; that is, they might have it and then not have it. He tells us that “the believer of one year, or of a period as much shorter as may be conceived of, if he has lived faithfully until he died, has rather had this perseverance than the believer of many years’ standing, if a little time before his death he has fallen away from the steadfastness of his faith.”[xviii] This seems to indicate that Augustine held to a qualitative distinction, and sounds rather like Calvin’s statement that Saul at one point had a disposition to love God, but that this sort of disposition is not “radically fixed” on reprobate men (like Saul), and isn’t of the pure quality that the elect posses.[xix] Someone supposing Augustine should be interpreted as agreeing with Calvin on the issue of the qualitative status of the faith of reprobate church members might likewise point to Augustine’s language when he indicates that some who “appear good believers”[xx] fall away as evidence that Augustine held to Calvin’s view that those who fall away necessarily do not poses the same type of faith as those who remain.

However, I think if we look at other statements in Augustine’s works on predestination and grace we will see that while perseverance is at times described in terms that foreshadow Calvin’s view of a necessary qualitative distinction between the belief of professing Christians who fall away and those who remain, we will also see that this shadow of Calvin’s view is not the view itself. The difference between their two views may be partly seen in how Augustine says in his work On Rebuke and Grace that some people do indeed “begin to live in the faith which works by love” and live righteously for a time, but fall away and are not called back before they die.[xxi] In chapter four of Augustine’s work on perseverance he calls perseverance “the great gift of God, whereby His other gifts are preserved.”[xxii] One of the gifts listed is piety. I think when we take these two statements together we can get a better grasp of where Augustine is coming from, and better see where he probably differs from Calvin.

It appears that Augustine saw the gift of perseverance as a sort of quality which might be possessed alongside real piety, but was not a necessary aspect of real piety itself, which might be willfully lost. Someone might object by citing chapter sixteen of Rebuke and Grace, where Augustine says:

“ ‘The Lord has known them that are His.’  2 Timothy 2:19 The faith of these, which works by love, either actually does not fail at all, or, if there are any whose faith fails, it is restored before their life is ended, and the iniquity which had intervened is done away, and perseverance even to the end is allotted to them.”[xxiii]

However, when looked at carefully this appears to be arguing that all who are elect will be granted an enduring “faith that works by love,” not that all who posses a faith that works by love at any particular time have had it granted that their faith will continue. Indeed, this seems to be the only way to reconcile this statement with the previously cited indication that some posses this faith and lose it. Likewise, this interpretation would explain Augustine’s discussion of perseverance as something that should be prayed for by believers, and his statements that believers cannot know if they are elect.

Some of the differences between Augustine and Calvin are presumably due to different modes of expression, however this last point helps to confirm both that there is a difference in their understanding of predestination, and that this difference had implications for the religious lives of Christians who subscribed to one theologian’s understanding of predestination over the other. Followers of Calvin on the issue believed that they in the present could know whether they were saved or not. Augustine on the other hand, asks, “who of the multitude of believers can presume, so long as he is in this mortal state, that he is in the number of the predestinated?”[xxiv] For Augustine, the answer is that believers cannot know this. Calvin and his followers on the other hand, have a tendency to see predestination as one of the things the believer knows thanks to the faith he has been given. The explanation for this difference between two men who otherwise had very similar thoughts on the subject of predestination lies largely in their different understandings of the quality of belief that might be had by someone who is not elect.

The issue between these men is how predestination is worked out in space and time, not in its objective certainty. Both men believed that God’s decrees controlled all events, including the identity of those who would end up saved. Calvin possesses a different understanding of how the decree relates to the presently existing church than Augustine does, because he sees perseverance as inseparably connected with “true faith” (the faith Augustine might describe as “working by love”). Thus for Calvin the objective truth of predestination is connected with a possibility of subjective certainty for those who are predestined. Calvin’s Augustinianism is in many ways an extension of original Augustinianism, but modifies it on the question of how God’s election is manifested and felt in the present life.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[i] John Calvin, The Institutes of the Christian Religion: Volume I, (Sixth American Edition) ed. John Allen (Philadelphia, Presbyterian Board of Publication) pp. 181-182

[ii] Augustine, On the Predestination of the Saints: Book 2, Chapter 27

<<http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/15122.htm>>(December 11^th, 2007)

[iii] The Canons of the Council of Orange

<<http://www.reformed.org/documents/index.html?mainframe=http://www.reformed.org/documents/canons_of_orange.html>>(December 10^th, 2007)

[iv] John Calvin, The Institutes of the Christian Religion pp. 246-247

[v] John Calvin, The Institutes of the Christian Religion p 250

[vi] John Calvin, The Institutes of the Christian Religion p 244

[vii] The Canons of the Council of Orange, Canon 17

<<http://www.reformed.org/documents/index.html?mainframe=http://www.reformed.org/documents/canons_of_orange.html>>(December 10^th, 2007)

[viii] Augustine, On the Predestination of the Saints: Book 1, Chapter 16

<<http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/15121.htm>&gt;

[ix] Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion p. 278

[x] Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion pp. 529-530

[xi] The Council of Trent, Session 6, Chapter 12

< http://history.hanover.edu/texts/trent/trentall.html >(December 11th, 2007)

[xii] Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion p. 267

[xiii] Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion p. 272

[xiv] Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion p. 500

[xv] Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion p. 500-501

[xvi] Augustine, On the Predestination of the Saint: Book 2, Chapter 1

<< http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/15122.htm >>(December 11th, 2007)

[xvii] Augustine, On Rebuke and Grace, Chapter 10

<< http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1513.htm >>(December 11th, 2007)

[xviii] Augustine On the Predestination of the Saint: Book 2, Chapter 1

<< http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/15122.htm >>(December 11th, 2007)

[xix] Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion p. 502

[xx] Augustine, On the Predestination of the Saints: Book 2, Chapter 19

<< http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/15122.htm >>(December 11th, 2007)

[xxi] Augustine On Rebuke and Grace, Chapter 40

<< http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1513.htm >>(December 11th, 2007)

[xxii] Augustine On the Predestination of the Saints: Book 2, Chapter 4

<< http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/15122.htm >>(December 11th, 2007)

[xxiii] Augustine, On Rebuke and Grace, Chapter 16

<< http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1513.htm >>(December 11th, 2007)

[xxiv] Augustine, On Rebuke and Grace, Chapter 40

<< http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1513.htm >>(December 11th, 2007)

Historic Natural Rights

(Originally submitted for LL.M. independent study course credit in Spring 2014 and then lightly edited for posting elsewhere.)

This paper’s goal is to discuss anti-liberal conservatism, and argue against historical genealogies which fail to recognize that belief in natural rights pre-dates both the political philosophers of the 1600s and the Reformation. The locus of this paper’s critique will be a paper by Robert Kraynak, a conservative professor of political science who argues that human rights are contrary to Roman Catholic political theory as it existed prior to John Locke.[1] This paper will present an affirmative case that natural rights (and some significant modern political applications of natural rights) developed within both (pre-Locke) Protestantism and the pre-reformation medieval church.

Kraynak’s paper, Catholicism and the Declaration of Independence: An American Dilemma about Natural Rights, categorizes the American political tradition into six sources: “Protestant Christianity, English common law, classical republicanism, the natural rights theory of the Declaration of Independence, (drawn mostly from John Locke), the ideal of gentleman statesmanship, and James Madison’s republican constitutionalism.”[2]

Kraynak claims that, Roman Catholicism “is closer to the Declaration of Independence than Protestantism,” because Protestantism “has generally rejected natural law theory.”[3] However, he claims that the views of natural law found in Roman Catholicism and in the Declaration of Independence are different, and, he argues over the course of the paper, fundamentally at odds. He denies that there is a Roman Catholic or medieval pedigree for human rights theories, and explicitly rejects human rights.

This may seem outside the mainstream (as Kraynak himself indicates in part of his essay), however he is not entirely alone,[4] and there’s a degree of risk in allowing intelligent people to go unanswered (a failure to reply because of an assumption that a thesis is false may cause a small, educated group of people who hold to it to suppose that no refutation can be sustained, and thus further fragment political discourse). According to Kraynak, “The crucial political question is whether the human person as such is a possessor of rights that must be recognized by the state and fellow citizens.”[5] This paper will show that, for many pre-Lockean Christian thinkers, both Protestant and Roman Catholic, the answer to that question is, “yes.”

A first error to be dealt with is the wedge between Protestantism and Natural Law. It is true that there are a number of Protestants who claim to be opposed to natural law or deny its value. However, many Protestant thinkers affirmed it and incorporated arguments based on natural law into their political theories. This is both important both in terms of showing continuity between Protestant and Medieval thought, and with regard to Locke, the Declaration of Independence, and the American political system, showing a greater degree of continuity between these and elements of earlier thought than is supposed by Kraynak’s argument.

As a specific example, one of the most important political texts of Protestant authorship, the Vindiciae Contra Tyrannos (Defense of Liberty Against Tyrants), written in response to the situation of the Huguenots in late 1500s France, “First, the law of nature teaches and commands us to maintain and defend our lives and liberties, without which life is scant worth the enjoying, against all injury and violence. Nature has imprinted this by instinct in dogs against wolves, in bulls against lions, betwixt pigeons and sparrow-hawks, betwixt pullen and kites, and yet much more in man ‘ against man himself, if man become a beast: and therefore he who questions the lawfulness of defending oneself, does, as much as in him lies, question the law of nature.”[6]

Likewise, the author(s) of the Vindiciae earlier argue, “Neither serves it to much more purpose, to allege that in some kingdoms there is no express agreement between the king and the people; for suppose there be no mention made, yet the law of nature teacheth us, that kings were not ordained to ruin, but to govern the commonwealths, and that they may not by their proper authority alter or change the rights of the public state, and although they be lords, yet can they challenge it in no other quality, than as guardians do in the tuition of their pupils; neither can we account him a lawful lord, who deprives the commonwealth of her liberty, and sells her as a slave.”[7]

Throughout the work there are numerous references to various non-Judeo-Christian polities and writers, as well as numerous biblical citations, which appear to indicate, that, the author (like Thomas Aquinas or any number of medieval thinkers) thought it appropriate to draw from both extra-biblical human reason and the Bible in formulating a political theory. The author does throughout the work advocate a specifically Christian view of politics (even referencing the Crusades as a precedent for military action to help other Christians[8]). However, in some respects, the specifically Christian content supports continuity rather than discontinuity, between this work and American politics.

The Vindiciae says that “at the inaugurating of kings, there was a double covenant treated of, to wit ‘between God and the king’; and ‘between God and the people.’”[9] This work even uses the term “contract” to describe the relationship that resulted. Thus, in addition to natural law, we have the idea of a contract between God and King as well as between God and people. Further, the Vindiciae explicitly says that “Kings are made by the people”[10] and says that the people are collectively superior to the King (though it denies that an individual person has the right to resist a legally appointed King by force, and says that resistance must be conducted through other officials within the realm, and that, if there are none such willing to resist, the people are generally required to bear the tyranny peacefully).

While the Vindicaie did not reduce the role of the state to protecting property (and in its vision of a Christian commonwealth, differs from much of later classical liberalism), it did advocate a restrained role for Kings with regard to their subjects’ property, “If then, therefore, in the creation of kings, men gave not their own proper goods unto them, but only recommended them to their protection; by what other right then, but that of freebooters, can they challenge the property of other men’s goods to themselves?”[11] While the Vindiciae is much more cautious than its title would suggest,[12] and indicates that, unless lesser magistrates lend their representative authority to non-anarchical resistance, private persons must “bear with bad princes” and “private persons may not unsheathe the sword against tyrants by practice, because they were not established by particulars, but by the whole body of the people”,[13] it still provides an argument for representative, corporate resistance which counters Kraynak to the extent he is associating American belief in a right to rebel against “serious usurpations of power” solely with Locke.[14]

In addition to the obvious similarity between many of these ideas and the American Revolution, we can trace the matter historically. Locke was certainly influential, as attested by the similarity between the words in the Declaration of Independence and his Treatises on Government, however, showing influence from Locke (who himself owned a copy of the Vindiciae, [15] and made many of his arguments from the Bible and used theological sources like Hooker[16]) does not preclude direct influence from political theologians. “John Adams, for example, cited three Reformed theologians as key to the development of Anglo-American liberty: John Milton (English Puritan), John Ponet (English Reformer), and the author of the Vindiciae, Contra Tyrannos (thought to be Phillipe Du Plessis Mornay). There is simply no reason to think that many of the texts now included in the canon of political theory took priority over political theology in the thinking of most Anglo-American Protestants.”[17]

Such Protestant theological sources, in turn drew on medieval sources as well as Roman Catholics from nearer their own day. The author of the Vindiciae cited church councils and medieval theologians to show the authority of the Pope was not absolute (and from this to argue that the authority of the King could not be absolute[18]). Samuel Rutherford (who, like the Vindiciae, referenced the law of nature as a source of civil authority,[19] and the people as a source of a king’s authority[20]) cited not only the church fathers[21] in support of his position, but also medieval and post Reformation Roman Catholic writers: “The P. Prelate might have thanked Spalato for this argument, but he doth not so much as cite him, for fear his theft be apprehended; but Spalato hath it set down with stronger nerves than the Prelate’s head was able to copy out of him. But Jac. de Almain, and Navarrus, with the Parisian doctors, said in the Council of Paris, ‘that politic power is immediately from God, but first from the community;’ but so that the community apply their power to this or that government — not of liberty, but by natural necessity.”[22]

Kraynak had said, that of the six elements he lists, “only English common law could be said to have a direct Catholic connection.”[23] More specifically, he says it would be difficult to “find a direct Catholic connection to Puritanism”[24]—this seems wrong one way or the other, either he’s defining Puritanism narrowly and then using it as a stand in for American protestant political theory (in which case he’s wrong, because there were plenty of protestant religious groups who had an influence on American politics without being Puritan in the sense of the specific group of New England Congregationalist settlers), or he’s using the term Puritanism to reference Protestantism (or Reformed Protestantism) more broadly, in which case there’s clearly a direct connection to the medieval church, both in terms of historical origins of the movement as a whole and in terms of, as has just been illustrated, citations to non-Protestant writers in order to support points in arguments for limiting the power of the King.

Thus the Protestant influence helps to show a pre-Protestant Catholic influence, and thus undermines, or at least, requires some qualifications around, Kraynak’s thesis. His general skipping over Protestant-Medieval and Protestant-Natural Law connections might be forgiven because of the short length of his paper, however, it seems to be part of a broader trend within related quarters of academia.

Historian Glenn Moots complains about this numerous times during his work on the Covenant[25] (which appears in part intended to remedy a gap in recent scholarship) about a neglect of political theology in favor of secular or supposedly secular philosophical texts. [26] He blames this in part on the bias in some portions of academia, for example, he says of Leo Strauss, that he,

“while in many ways a scholar of the first rank and deeply influential among modern political theorists, doomed the Reformation to obscurity in some corners of political study by essentially separating theology from philosophy. Though a dedicated student of some Jewish philosophers, Strauss had little to say about biblical covenants other than to place them firmly within the theological tradition and use them to support his argument ‘that there is a radical opposition between the Bible and philosophy.’ As for the tradition of Reformed Protestantism, his minimal treatment of Calvin is only to juxtapose him with Spinoza as part of Strauss’s reason-revelation dichotomy. Strauss’s knowledge of Protestant political theology is difficult to discern, and it is unclear whether he has much familiarity with it at all. His landmark work, Natural Right and History, contains no substantial treatment of any Protestants. His treatment of Luther is scant.”[27]

A reading of Strauss’s Natural Right and History makes this characterization appear fair. Strauss has a number of witty, intelligent, quotable, and perceptive comments on contemporary political philosophy, and correctly points out the foolishness of anti-theoretical philosophy, including anti-theoretical conservatism.[28] However his history skips over key areas and thus creates a picture that overly opposes modern and pre-modern political philosophy—one would, from reading him, get the impression that, the movement from the medieval to the modern world, natural law went straight from “the Thomistic view” to a modern view that thought “that natural law or natural right should be kept independent of theology and its controversies.”[29] In a footnote criticizing Weber, Strauss chides him for failing to pay attention to “a purely secular development,” and complains that he does not take into account secular texts written before the Puritan ones[30]—whatever degree of truth or error there is in this point, it does provide a criticism which mirrors one of the ones being made here against Strauss: he does not take into account religious texts that predate the secular or purportedly ones on which he spends the bulk of his argument, and so does not even make an argument for the influence of political theology having been small.[31] His definition of secularism as “the temporalization of the eternal”[32] seems to lend itself to missing much of the relationship between religious and secular ideas, insofar as many religious thinkers expected a this-worldly reflection of the spiritual world—this approach seems in danger of finding ideas to be non-religious when in fact they are an extension of religious principles to this worldly problems.

Examining what experts in other subjects have to say it appears that these problems is not limited to Protestantism, but is seen in a similar-but-less severe form in his treatment of medieval philosophy.[33] Paradoxically, it seems that Strauss’s faith-philosophy divide may lead some religious readers of him to become more “anti-modern” precisely because of historical analysis from a non-religious point of view which minimized the contributions of religion to the modern world. For example, at the close of his book, when he discusses Edmund Burke,[34] the reader is not in a position , based on the book’s lack of discussion of Protestant political theory, to catch the possible resonances when Strauss (in quote marks) mentions Burke’s “‘uncovenanted’ men.”[35] Strauss does, it appears, by noting that according to Burke freedom is found in virtue,[36] see Burke as a bridge between modern natural right and extreme, anti-duty neglecting versions of the theory (though he presents him as the integrator of classical and modern, rather than, perchance, also being in line with an older tradition of modern republicanism). Because of his failures to discuss relevant aspects of the medieval and reformation eras, a reader who relies too heavily on Strauss is in danger of not knowing of variants of early modern political thought such as that represented by the Vindiciae, which affirmed natural rights but spent much of its argument discussing the issues in terms of duty. Strauss argues that, while Burke uses the language of “modern natural right” to advance his argument, “he may be said to integrate these notions into a classical or Thomistic framework.” Assuming the basic correctness of Strauss’s presentation of Burke, the reader is likely to get a mistaken impression of the flow of political history, insofar as early modern political theology already formed a bridge between the world of, say, Locke, and the classical and medieval world—that is, a bridge between the two did not simply have to be invented after the fact, as between two things which did not have a connection before. This is not to say there is complete identity between these things or that the excesses of modern thought could not benefit from medieval or classical correction, but the muddling of the historical movement makes it more difficult to have an accurate discussion on whether that movement was progress or regress.

In the case of Kraynak, whose historical analysis is similar to Strauss (though the text does not cite him for any particular point), this extends further than not taking note of Protestant influence on natural rights theories, but goes beyond it into an active denial that this is part of the Roman Catholic tradition prior to being, in Kraynak’s view, awkwardly grafted into it in the twentieth century and the latter half and the nineteenth century.[37]

Kraynak acknowledges that some people have argued that natural rights is a historic part of the Catholic tradition, and concedes that: “If a connection between the Gospel, Catholic natural law, and the dignity and rights of the human person does exist – as Tierney, Maritain, Murray, and others suggest – then Catholicism and the Declaration of Independence would share considerable common ground.”[38]

He goes on to explicitly attack the views of one prominent medievalist, Brian Tierney, who has argued that natural rights theories have their origin in the Middle Ages. However, he fails to refute Tierney, first, the quote he uses from Tierney’s The Idea of Natural Rights in order to dismiss him appears to be out of context, and, more broadly, he fails to interact with key parts of Tierney’s argument.

Kraynak’s readers are in danger of being misled when he quotes Tierney as saying that it took a long time for a theory of subjective natural rights to emerge; he quotes Tierney as saying that, “‘Perhaps there was always a possibility that Christian teaching on the inherent value of each individual person could be reformulated as a doctrine of subjective natural rights. But, certainly, through most of Christian history, the possibility was not realized.’”[39] Kraynak then moves on to make comments about the precariousness of a position which requires Tierney to “‘smoke it out. ’”[40] However, in the context of Tierney’s argument he appears to be referring to a period prior to many of the late medieval authors he discusses—he certainly isn’t conceding the point that no one explicitly believed in natural rights prior to the 1600s, as Kraynak’s readers might (if they have not read Tierney) be led to think. Tierney believes that natural rights began to be referred to in the course of the Middle Ages, with varying degrees of explicitness. Immediately after the quote as provided by Kraynak, Tierney says, “The idea seems foreign to the tradition of Eastern Orthodoxy. There was no Greek Gerson or Grotius or Locke. In the medieval West, from the twelfth century to the fifteenth, we can find writers who used early Christian texts to support an emerging doctrine of natural rights; but their understanding (or misunderstanding) of the texts was a new one.”[41] This is a bit different from saying that no one until Tierney believed in natural rights or that no one until Tierney found them in the medieval tradition.

Thus Tierney cites Huber, a younger contemporary of Grotius (one of the most famous renaissance legal thinkers) as actually complaining that Grotius was using the Latin word Ius in a sense derived from the “canon and civil lawyers” of the middle ages when he used it to refer to a property right.[42] This challenges Kraynak in three ways, firstly in his characterization of Tierney’s argument (Tierney doesn’t concede the issue Kraynak claims he concedes), and secondly, this reference to Grotius itself illustrates a connection between modern natural rights and medieval thought, and thirdly (if Tierney’s is characterization of Huber’s critique is correct), it seriously challenges the substantive point made by Kraynak, insofar as, if a 1600s era Dutch intellectual was complaining about Ius being used by the medievals to mean “right” it appears to be evidence that this is not simply an invention of modern Roman Catholics. (But again, Kraynak, in his relatively quick dismissal of Tierney, doesn’t interact much with Tierney’s particular claims).

Kraynak begs the question when he says, “Not only is Tierney’s scholarly claim of an independent Catholic human rights tradition dubious on historical grounds (the subjective rights that he uncovers are not forerunners of modern natural rights but virtuous powers or internal supports for traditional moral virtues).”[43] Of course, the early Americans believed that a broad sphere of private autonomy did serve to build up moral virtues, so the distinction is better found in the breadth of the sphere and in the proper agents of its implementation (with modern human rights theorists being more likely to support non-monarchial republics, and medieval more likely to support monarchy, but this is not an ironclad rule).

Further, if only “virtuous powers” were intended, what of medieval writers like, for example, Pope John XXII, who specifically attacked one’s ability to use an object without having a right to it? Against his Spiritual Franciscan[44] opponents (who were trying to claim they didn’t own anything) Pope John thought that just use of an object implied a right to use it.[45] (If one thinks I or Tierney am begging the question by assuming this is correctly translated “right,” try and substitute some other word into this papal bull—what other than “right,” or a word with analogous meaning, can make sense of this?)

“What is said to be contained in the explanation of our predecessor Nicholas, however, that the Brothers Minor have only simple use of fact in the things that come to them, we say that if he meant simple use of fact devoid of all right, so that the Brothers themselves or the Order would have no right of using, this is explicitly against the declaration of our predecessors, the supreme pontiffs Gregory, Innocent, and Alexander above mentioned, in which it is explicitly contained that the Order has the use of such things: this must necessarily be understood of use of right, as has been proved above. Besides, we say that this is impossible, namely that simple use of fact without any right (which can properly be called nothing else than the [act of] using {uti} itself) can be held by anyone in any thing, even one not consumable by use, as has been proved in the decretal Ad conditorem canonum, and as Augustine explicitly holds concerning an act in [Confessions] book 11. Further, if anyone could have simple use, devoid of every right, it is certain that such an act of using would have to be regarded as not-just, since a person would have used to whom no right of using belonged.”[46]

The Franciscans believed that they could renounce “rights” in pursuit of spiritual virtue, so it appears that “right” (in a similar sense to which we now use “property rights”) must be a roughly correct translation—devotees of “evangelical poverty” presumably wouldn’t be so angry if the Pope was merely saying that they could not avoid having “virtuous powers” or “internal supports for traditional moral virtues”. No, rather, they (like some religious people today) thought having rights to property was unspiritual. Thus, Tierney, accusing each side of writing their own prejudices into the state of nature, describes a prominent member of the Franciscan party and the Pope as both putting forward a specific understanding of pre-fall humanity and saying that the status of property in that period was normative for today: “Bonagratia’s Franciscan dream world was entirely without property; in Pope John’s imaginary Eden private ownership was a dominant fact of life.”[47] The extreme Franciscans were claiming that the original state lacked property and was normative, Pope John the twenty-second argued that “‘in the state of innocence’” there was property and even individual ownership (with Adam owning everything).[48]

Nor is this an isolated point, Tierney cites a previous Pope, Innocent IV, to show that pagans were (in one stream of medieval thought—happily, the one which won out) understood to have a right to their territories[49] (this, it seems, might be a point at which Kraynak might have differentiated between modern and medieval views, as, looking at sources other than Tierney, we see that this Pope asserted a broad right to intervene in secular affairs, even the affairs of pagans[50]—but as Kraynak is asserting that human rights are simply not in the tradition at all, he misses any opportunity to show differences between modern and medieval views of them). Likewise, Tierney cites both nominalist and realist theologians to show it was not limited to one such school.[51] He cites Nicholas of Cusa as having referenced “‘The equal natural rights common to all men.’”[52] He cites figures who believed that the condemned had the right to escape from prison even if they were guilty.[53]

Kraynak fails to interact at all with the Spanish scholastics, and thus does not explain how (for example) Vitoria’s defense of the American Indians is not done in terms of natural rights, or how (in the following citation) his description of the Spanish right to visit the American Indians is not in terms of natural right: “And if there were any human law which without any cause took away rights conferred by natural and divine law, it would be inhumane and unreasonable and consequently would not have the force of law.”[54] Vitoria makes the case that non-Christians can have title to their lands—it seems like it would be more helpful to explain how this differs from modern natural rights theories—but again, Kraynak, in ignoring the history of natural rights within the Roman Catholic tradition, misses an opportunity to discuss such things.

Aside from not dealing with many of the likely historical precedents, in claiming that modern views of human rights are completely separate from the Catholic tradition, Kraynak frames the question of whether Catholicism has a tradition of human rights by framing human rights in a way that would have been repugnant to modern legal theorists like Locke and Grotius, as well as repugnant to early Americans generally. “Christianity places duties to God and to neighbor before claims of rights and cannot accept the proposition that a right to pursue happiness as one sees fit takes precedence over duties to God and man.”[55] (Contrast how De Tocqueville, in his Democracy in America, repeatedly pointed out that American society worked because people were willing to organize outside of the state and did not treat their liberty this way.)

Further, in claiming that Locke’s views have been uncritically incorporated into American Christianity, he (like in many other places throughout the essay) seems to take “Lockean” in a somewhat literalistic way, and risks giving a reader the impression that Locke unilaterally originated ideas, like, for example, freedom of conscience (which he appears to put forward as an example of one such incorporation of originally non-Christian ideas/Lockean ideas into American Christianity).[56] I’m a little leery of entering what appears to be an active academic debate (on Locke’s influence) without more research on that subject. Of my sources for this paper, Strauss and Kraynak have a high view, Moots makes several arguments to say it was not so great as sometimes supposed, for example: “Locke’s Two Treatises was not printed in America until 1773.”[57] (I am not sure to what degree whether it was being printed in America bears on whether it was broadly read in America.) Likewise, Moots references an Increase Mather Sermon as discussing (in so many words) a right to life, liberty and property[58] in order to show the danger of identifying these things with just Locke or reducing their origin to any one man. I am confident that Kraynak and Strauss overstate Locke’s influence, but am not sure whether (and to what degree) Moots is understating it. That said, Moots deals more comprehensively with the texts from the relevant period, and I feel confident that his view is more accurate than theirs, without necessarily being correct wholesale. My uncertainty concerns the degree in which Locke modified the existing natural rights tradition, and with what degree the American view of rights was transmitted to America via Locke (with his own views being derived in part from other authors) and to what degree they were absorbed from other sources.

The idea of (for example) freedom of conscience is not just something Locke invented. We can find it in Milton (and presumably twelve-year-old John Locke did not dictate this to him), writing, in a section titled, Why freedom is necessary:

“Where there is much desire to learn, there of necessity will be much arguing, much writing, many opinions; for opinion in good men is but knowledge in the making. Under these fantastic terrors of sect and schism, we wrong the earnest and zealous thirst after knowledge and understanding which God hath stirred up in this city. What some lament of, we rather should rejoice at, should rather praise this pious forwardness among men, to reassume the illdeputed care of their religion into their own hands again. A little generous prudence, a little forbearance of one another, and some grain of charity might win all these diligences to join and unite in one general and brotherly search after truth, could we but forego this prelatical tradition of crowding free consciences and Christian liberties into canons and precepts of men.”[59]

He follows this with a section an editor has titled, On the value of intellectual diversity and debate, and of its contribution to the overall advancement of learning, in which he indicates that such may “polish and brighten the armory of truth,” and he follows this section with the editor has summarized with the title, On the importance of even wrong ideas. I myself was until relatively recently unaware of Milton’s influence in politics,[60] but one need not know of his influence to see this as an example of why we shouldn’t categorize freedom of conscience at an invention of Locke (this is distinguished from using Lockean by way of using a prominent and capable intellectual’s name as a convenient shorthand for a bundle of ideas for which he was a relatively effective advocate).

On the whole, Kraynak’s claim that “Catholicism did not contribute historically to the Declaration”[61] is partly true insofar as he refers to direct contributions of Roman Catholics living in 1770s America, which were limited relative to the direct contributions of Protestants, Unitarians, and Deists. However, despite his arguments regarding an “indirect”[62] connection (which Kraynak attempts to examine and refute) between natural rights as understood by Roman Catholics and the view espoused by the declaration, such may be seen both via Protestant political theorists’ own belief in natural rights, their inheritance and reformulation of medieval political theory, and in influence from post-reformation Roman Catholic sources on Protestant natural rights theorists.

Indeed, there seems to have been a degree (while there remained significant differences between the political climate found within each religious groups) of convergence, insofar as both Roman Catholics and Protestants found themselves or, at least, some of their co-religionists, in situations where they were under the rule of rulers who sought to limit their (for lack of a better word) rights. Thus both Protestant and Roman Catholic thinkers had incentives for opposing absolute monarchy. Glenn Moots spends a great deal of detail in describing how many Protestants first articulated an ideal of a national civil and religious covenant, which, after the experience of conflict (and general difficulties determining the relationship of religious to civil power) within Protestantism, led to more and more support for toleration. Likewise, Brian Tierney discusses how Spanish scholastics Vitoria and Suarez appear to have qualified their support for monarchy as a result of seeing how absolute monarchs might use the doctrine of divine right of kings to threaten the authority of the Roman Catholic church.[63]

Of course, the use of a doctrine of rights to defend religious (or other) liberty might be wrong, even allowing that there were historical reasons for this, but, by failing to acknowledge the religious history of the doctrine of rights, Kraynak misses an opportunity to analyze the history of this doctrine and explain where it may have gone wrong.

That something is more contrary to modern liberal society does not make it older, for example, take this quote from 1800s era southern Presbyterian theologian R. L. Dabney:

“political society is composed of ‘superiors, inferiors, and equals’; that while all these bear an equitable moral relation to each other, they have very different natural rights and duties; that just government is not founded on the consent of the individuals governed, but, on the ordinance of God, and hence a share in the ruling franchise is not a natural right at all, but a privilege to be bestowed according to a wise discretion on a limited class having qualification to use it for the good of the whole; that the integers out of which the State is constituted are not individuals, but families represented in their parental heads; that every human being is born under authority (parental and civic) instead of being born ‘free’ in the licentious sense, that liberty is each one’s privilege of doing what he chooses; that subordination, and not that license, is the natural state of all men; and that without such equitable distribution of different duties and rights among the classes naturally differing in condition, and subordination of some to others, and of all to the law, society is as impossible as is the existence of a house without distinction between the foundation stone and the capstones.”[64]

Contrasting at least to some of the rhetoric of this particular passage, Samuel Rutherford, a Presbyterian from the 1600s, had (in passages cited above) defended government as being concurrently from God and the people; it is not necessarily the case that rhetoric which contrasts more to that commonly employed in modern discourse is the older version of a given ideology or rhetorical tradition. Kraynak (reacting, perhaps to contemporary upheavals in moral norms, which threaten to result in the ostensibly liberal state using the language of rights while coercing religious communities into a certain form of tolerance), seems to see in any use of languages of rights within his own religious tradition an accommodation to existing culture, despite the evidence for an earlier history of such usage.

Both Tierney and Moots express concern about the modern usage of pre-modern philosophies and thus are able to make a more historically accurate (if not always satisfactory) critique. Tierney complains that rights languages seems to be applied to a number of things such that it is both itself watered down and minimizes duty. [65] Moots warns that, “To suggest dichotomous priorities of ‘religion’ and ‘politics’ invites paranoia and disables respectful discussion. Both church and state begin to wonder which will be subordinated to the other.”[66] He suggests that the history of the covenant both provides examples of mistakes, and can help to guard against a dichotomy between individual rights and the community, and help to provide a corrective to contemporary individualism.[67]

Whether or one likes this solutions these historians would propose, they do a service to contemporary legal and political theory by pointing out ways in which pre-modern and early-modern world already provides understandings of individual rights which include an idea of the community and of a higher law. [68] One is better equipped to respond to perceived problematic tendencies in contemporary liberal political theory if one understands that liberal theory does not stand in a relation of total discontinuity with previous law and philosophy.

[1] He appears to suggest it was inconsistently incorporated into Roman Catholic thought in the late 1800s.
[2] Robert P. Kraynak, Catholicism and the Declaration of Independence: An American Dilemma about Natural Rights, 2. That paper has been republished in Christopher Cullen & Joseph Allan Clair ed., Maritain and America, to which I did not have access while writing this paper.
[3] Kraynak, 1
[4] To snatch a quote from a more famous writer, who I didn’t finish reading in time to broadly incorporate into this paper: “It could be a little odd that there should be such rights attaching to human beings simply qua human beings in light of the fact, which I alluded to in my discussion of Gewirth’s argument, that there is no expression in any ancient or medieval language correctly translated by our expression ‘a right’ until near the close of the middle ages: the concept lacks any means of expression in Hebrew, Greek, Latin or Arabic, classical or medieval, before about 1400, let alone in Old English, or in Japanese as late as the mid-nineteenth century. From this it does not of course follow that there are no natural or human rights; it only follows that no one could have known that there were. And this at least raises certain questions. But we do not need to be distracted into answering them, for the truth is plain: there are no such rights, and belief in them is one with belief in witches and unicorns. “The best reason for asserting so bluntly there are no such rights is indeed of precisely the same type as the best which we possess for asserting that there are no witches and the best reason which we posses for asserting that there are no unicorns: every attempt to give good reasons for believing that there are such rights has failed. The eighteenth-century philosophical defenders of natural rights sometimes suggest that the assertions that state that men possess them are self-evident truths; but we know that there are no self-evident truths.” Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue (3rd ed.), 69.
[5] Kraynak, 10.
[6] “Junius Brutus,” Vindiciae, Contra Tyrannos: A Defense of Liberty Against Tyrants, Whether the King be the Usufructor of the Kingdom? http://www.constitution.org/vct/vind.htm
[7] “Junius Brutus,” Vindiciae, Contra Tyrannos: A Defense of Liberty Against Tyrants, Whether the King be the Usufructor of the Kingdom?
[8] “Junius Brutus,” Vindiciae, Contra Tyrannos: A Defense of Liberty Against Tyrants, Whether it be lawful to resist a prince who doth infringe upon the word of God, or ruin his Church: by whom, how, and how far it is lawful.
[9] Id, Whether neighbor princes may, or are bound by law to aid the subjects of other princes, persecuted for true religion or oppressed by manifest tyranny
[10] Id, Kings are made by the people.
[11] “Junius Brutus,” Vindiciae, Contra Tyrannos: A Defense of Liberty Against Tyrants, Whether the goods of the people belong to the king
[12] “In the first place we must remember that all princes are born men, and therefore reason and passion are as hardly to be separated in them, as the soul is from the body whilst the man lives. We must not then expect princes absolute in perfection, but rather repute ourselves happy if those who govern us be indifferently good. And therefore, although the prince observe not exact mediocrity in state affairs; if sometimes passion overrule his reason, if some careless omission make him neglect the public utility; or if he do not always carefully execute justice with equality, or repulse not with ready valour an invading enemy; he must not therefore be presently declared a tyrant. And certainly, seeing he rules not as a god over men, nor as men over beasts, but is a man composed of the same matter, and of the same nature with the rest: as we would questionless judge that prince unreasonably insolent, who should insult over and abuse his subjects, as if they were brute beasts; so those people are doubtless as much void of reason, who imagine a prince should be complete in perfection, or expect divine abilities in a nature so frail and subject to imperfections. But if a prince purposely ruin the commonwealth, if he presumptuously pervert and resist legal proceedings or lawful rights, if he make no reckoning of faith, covenants, justice nor piety, if he prosecute his subjects as enemies; briefly, if he express all or the chiefest of those wicked practices we have formerly spoken of; then we may certainly declare him a tyrant, who is as much an enemy both to God and men. We do not therefore speak of a prince less good, but of one absolutely bad; not of one less wise, but of one malicious and treacherous; not of one less able judiciously to discuss legal differences, but of one perversely bent to pervert justice and equity; not of an unwarlike, but of one furiously disposed to ruin the people, and ransack the state. For the wisdom of a senate, the integrity of a judge, the valour of a captain, may peradventure enable a weak prince to govern well. But a tyrant could be content that all the nobility, the counsellors of state, the commanders for the wars, had but one head that he might take it off at one blow: those being the proper objects of his distrust and fear, and by consequence the principal subjects on whom he desires to execute his malice and cruelty. A foolish prince, although (to speak according to right and equity) he ought to be deposed, yet may he perhaps in some sort be borne withal. But a tyrant the more he is tolerated, the more he becomes intolerable. Furthermore, as the princes’ pleasure is not always law, so many times it is not expedient that the people do all that which may lawfully be done; for it may oftentimes chance that the medicine proves more dangerous than the disease. Therefore it becomes wise men to try all ways before they come to blows, to use all other remedies before they suffer the sword to decide the controversy.” Id, Whether the King be the Usufurctor of the kingdom
[13] Id.

[14] Kraynak, 4.
[15] Glenn A. Moots, Politics Reformed: The Anglo-American Legacy of Covenant Theology, 117-8
[16] Leo Strauss, in Natural Right and History 165-6, 207, 218, 221-2, et al, indicates the Locke’s thought was completely different than Hooker, however, without a discussion of the other Christian parallels to Locke, this argument seems insufficient to distance Locke from the preceding tradition to the degree Strauss appears to do.
[17] Glenn A. Moots, Politics Reformed: The Anglo-American Legacy of Covenant Theology, (Kindle Edition) 5.
[18] “Junius Brutus,” Vindiciae, Contra Tyrannos: A Defense of Liberty Against Tyrants, Whether it be lawful to resist a prince who doth infringe the law of God, or ruin His Church: by whom, how, and how far it is lawful.
[19] Lex Rex, Question II, Whether or not government be warranted by the law of Nature. http://www.constitution.org/sr/q02.htm
[20] Id, Question VII, Whether or no the Popish Prelate, the aforesaid author, doth by force of reason evince that neither constitution nor designation of the king is from the people http://www.constitution.org/sr/q07.htm
[21] Id.
[22] Lex Rex, Question VIII, Whether the Prelate proveth by force of reason that the people cannot be capable of government. http://www.constitution.org/sr/q08.htm
[23] Kraynak, 7. [24] Id.
[25] According to Moots, the Covenant is in many respects a distinct contribution of reformed thought to political theory which partly results from its emphasis on the Old Testament. “The study of Reformed political theology must begin with its Hebraic roots. While Reformed theologians pursued reforms of Roman Catholicism on points common to all Protestant traditions, the Reformed variant of Protestantism is marked by three important emphasis. The first was an emphasis on biblical languages, consistent with the humanist learning of the founders of Reformed Protestantism. Reemphasizing Hebrew, sometimes even rabbinic sources, encouraged a new and independently minded study of the Hebrew Scriptures (the ‘Old Testament’). This then led to a second innovation, biblical covenants as a leitmotif of theology and biblical interpretation. The third innovation was the construction of a theological garment that attempted to seamlessly integrate Hebrew Scriptures and the Christian Scriptures—the ‘Old’ and ‘New’ Testaments. This return to the Old Testament together with the articulation of ‘covenant theology’ changed modern politics.” Glenn A. Moots, Politics Reformed: The Anglo-American Legacy of Covenant Theology, 33
[26] “Reformed political thought is notably absent from many anthologies, histories, and surveys of political ideas. Too few critical studies of modern political theory take its influence seriously, let alone carefully discern its role in forming what we know call ‘modern’ political theory. It is certainly true that many factors and philosophies came together to overcome medieval Christianity and its Aristotelian variants. But scholars in political theory largely ignore Christianity in its Protestant formulations, particularly during the period of early modernity when it was most influential. Such omission is especially negligent given the highly political nature of the Reformation and the massive subscription to Protestant doctrine by all classes of society over three centuries between 1550 and 1850. Perhaps nowhere is this more evident than in the standard ‘canon’ of political thought, wherein one finds few explicitly Protestant Christian authors studied beyond perhaps Calvin and Luther. Students reading standard histories of political theory might be led to think that modern political ideas came from philosophical whole cloth or that there was no significantly influential political theology save for the work of a couple key reformers or churchmen.” Moots, 4.
[27] Moots, 5. Moots also complains (in footnote 14 of Chapter 1), that, “Richard Hooker is the only theologian mentioned outside the Roman Catholic tradition.”
[28] Of Burke, “One might think that Burke would have to measure the British constitution by a standard transcending it in order to recognize it as wise, and to a certain extent he undoubtedly does precisely this: he does not tire of speaking of natural right, which, as such, is anterior to the British constitution. But he also says that ‘our constitution is a prescriptive constitution; it is a constitution whose sole authority is that it has existed time out of mind’ or that the British constitution claims and asserts the liberties of the British ‘as an estate especially belonging to the people of this kingdom, without any reference whatever to any other more general or prior right.’” Leo Strauss, Natural Right and History, 319.
[29] Strauss, 164.
[30] Strauss, 60-1 (To pick a specific example of a shift in theology with political implications, Strauss does not devote time to dealing with the renewed emphasis on ancient Israel and the study of the Hebrew language on political theory—Cf. Eric Nelson, The Hebrew Republic: Jewish Sources and the Transformation of European Political Thought, as well as Glenn Moots, Supra. Nelson is more detailed on the Hebraic influence, but Moots’ overall understanding of the subject matter appears to be better. Strauss’s failure to discuss Hebraism may seem a nit-picky point, but it is one of many examples of things that get left out when one skips from Aquinas to Hobbes (who, in Nelson’s analysis, did use arguments based on the revived Hebraism of his day) without providing much of an intermediate context other than Machiavelli.
[31] Cf. Moots, 3, “The scholarly community, even where it cherishes distinctly Western political values, often acts as if those political values can be found only in secular texts. This only contributes to an amnesia wherein we forget the theological roots of political theory.” & Moots, 4.“Given the permeating and persevering influence of Protestant theology on so many generations, and over centuries, one can only conclude that leaping from ‘Christian and medieval’ to ‘secular and modern’ as the high-water marks of political theory omits the role of the Reformation from the history of political theory.” [32] “’Secularization’ is the ‘temporalization’ of the spiritual or of the eternal. It is the attempt to integrate the eternal into a temporal context. It therefore presupposes that the eternal is no longer understood as eternal. ‘Secularization,’ in other words, presupposes a radical change of thought, a transition of thought from one plane to an entirely different plane.” Strauss, 317. This is dramatically at odds with much of Christian thought, and, unless this is recognized, jeopardizes one’s ability to discern religiously inspired political reflection or religious currents within political reflection.
[33] Leading to criticism from Brian Tierney in The Idea of Natural Rights, at locations 84, 408, 539, et al.
[34] Burke’s last name is my middle, so perchance Straus’s making him a sort of hero of the story mitigates somewhat the biases I may have against him.
[35] Strauss, 296, 298.
[36] Id., 297.
[37] Kraynak, 10, 13. [38] Id, 13
[39] Id, 12.
[40] Id.
[41] Tierney at location 2497.
[42] Id, at locations 3887 to 3895
[43] Kraynak, 14.
[44] For a more detailed discussion of this dispute see (in addition to Tierney, The Idea of Natural Rights) Brian Tierney, The Origins of Papal Infallibility, 1150-1350: A Study on the Concepts of Infallibility, Sovereignty and Tradition in the Middle Ages.
[45] Tierney, The Idea of Natural Rights, at location 1437
[46] Pope John XXII, Quia Quorundum, (Brackets in source). http://www.mq.edu.au/about_us/faculties_an…quia_quorundam/
[47] Tierney, at locations 1729-36
[48] Id, location 1820
[49] Tierney, location 1663-77
[50] I.e. Kenneth Pennington, Innocent IV http://faculty.cua.edu/pennington/Medieval…/InnocentIV.htm
[51] For example, in his discussions of both Dominican theologian Hervaeus Natalis and William of Ockham in his chapter titled, “Languages of Rights.” Tierney at locations 1196-1513
[52] Tierney, at locations 2750-6
[53] Id, locations 1006-42
[54] Vitoria, On The Indians Lately Discovered. http://www.constitution.org/victoria/victoria_4.htm
[55] Kraynak, 8. His framing of the issue seems reminiscent of Strauss, who (in Natural Right and History, 243) indicates that Locke thinks that those who “give alms to the poor” “lesson rather than increase the common stock of mankind.”—which as far as I know is not something Locke says—at least, not something I recall him saying in the treatises on government.
[56] Id, 6—even if his particular example is of a person influenced by Locke, he seems to imply that freedom of conscience more broadly is reductionistically Lockean in origin.
[57] Moots, 114
[58] Id, 106 [59] John Milton, The Areopagitica http://www.stlawrenceinstitute.org/vol14mit.html
[60] See Moots, 97, et al.
[61] Kraynak, 2.
[62] Id, 7.
[63] Tierney, at locations 3424-3591. Tierney says he thinks Vitoria changed his views as a threat from monarchs become more obvious and indicates that Suarez, whose career started later, was more critical of monarchy as a result of the times in which he lived.
[64] Robert Lewis Dabney, Women’s Rights Women, http://www.amprpress.com/women’s_rights_women.htm
[65] “In the West we have seen an almost absurd inflation of rights language. This is not simply due to the recognition of welfare rights; that has been part of the tradition from the beginning. The problem is rather that nowadays, besides a luxuriant array of rights inhering in various classes of humans—rights of ethnic minorities, rights of women, rights of gays, lesbians, and bisexuals, rights of the handicapped, rights of consumers, rights of smokers and of non-smokers, and so on almost endlessly—besides all these we encounter rights of animals, rights of trees, rights of unborn generations. These various rights claims may all be ways of advocating desirable social policies; but the multiplication of innumerable particular rights can erode any sense of community and the common good, values that the earlier rights theorists never lost sight of. As Mary Ann Glendon has recently complained, the modern inclination to force all controversial issues into a straightjacket of rights talk tends to impoverish our moral and political discourse.” (Tierney at locations 4139-4147)
[66] Moots, 2
[67] “Covenants may offer an alternative to our current fascination with dichotomous ideologies: liberalism or communitarianism, capitalism or socialism, democracy or totalitarianism.” Moots, Preface.
[68] I personally like the idea of “Sphere Sovereignty” as a contemporary viewpoint which incorporates past reflections on these issues and strives avoid a reductionalisticly individualistic or communitarian understanding of politics. Cf. Kent A. Van Til, Subsidiarity and Sphere Sovereignty: A Match Made in …?, in Theological Studies, 2008, 69: 610.

Natural Law and Jus Cogens Norms

(Originally submitted for independent study credit during my final J.D. semester in Spring 2013, lightly edited here to fix some typos, remedy some oversights, and fit the format.)

Jus cogens,[1] or peremptory norms, are standard aspects of any modern discussion of international law. Certain acts, such as piracy, slavery, and genocide, are held to violate international law at a fundamental level such that no state can derogate from the prohibition against committing them.

This paper will argue first, that consensus, positivist,[2] and fiduciary explanations[3] of peremptory norms, though they have been put forward as alternatives to natural law, in fact require some variant of natural law as a foundation. Second, the variety of possible natural law answers to international law questions will be illustrated by looking both at conflicting natural law theories and at several conflicting “natural law” answers to practical problems. Third, it will be argued that adopting a natural law theory does not in fact invalidate the legal theories (with a focus on the recently-advanced fiduciary theory) that are sometimes advanced as alternatives to it; rather, such theories are necessarily included within natural law theory as subordinate means of giving specification to and explaining how a natural law understanding of justice interacts with the world.

It might be argued that peremptory norms simply reflect the consensus of the international community. Read by itself, the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties[4] appears to support such a view.

“For the purposes of the present Convention, a peremptory norm of general international law is a norm accepted and recognized by the international community of States as a whole as a norm from which no derogation is permitted and which can be modified only by a subsequent norm of general international law having the same character.”[5]

Furthermore, “If a new peremptory norm of general international law emerges, any existing treaty which is in conflict with that norm becomes void and terminates.”[6] However, it appears that “as a whole” was in fact not intended to require the agreement of every single state, rather the opposite.[7] More importantly, even setting aside what the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties[8] says on the subject,[9] consensus is at least insufficient as an explanation; numerous norms are in fact derogated from (freedom to worship, for example). The norm is widely recognized, but many countries maintain practices that both the authorities in liberal democracies and any international authority (like the International Court of Justice) likely to be called upon to adjudicate a dispute regarding it would likely recognize as violations. Attempting to answer the question of how peremptory norms are identified by specifying consensus as the means for the development of an international norm[10] appears to leave unanswered the problem of how to have a binding interpretation of the norm—if consensus were the sole and absolute requirement, a country might claim to not be violating a norm simply by claiming it adhered to an interpretation that differed from the international community (and thus, there would be no consensus—in other words, the agreement of all states, taken by itself, is definitionally incapable of providing norms that obligate a disagreeing minority of states, even a minority of one).

At this point, someone might claim to have found an answer to defining the basic norms of human right—that is, recognition by an international authority like the International Court of Justice or United Nations. Thus one would provide a method (analogous to municipal law) by which there could both be international law and countries which derogate from international law. This looks potentially promising, but begs further questions regarding the necessary preconditions for legitimate international rulemaking. A majority rule-making process appears particularly problematic at the international level, due to, among other things, discrepancies in: population, soundness (and fairness) of international political systems, and contribution to the world economy.[11] As legal scholar Bin Cheng wrote on issues of this nature:

“The present low value of General Assembly resolutions is due probably in no small measure to the fact that, at a rough count, a two-thirds majority for adopting a resolution can be mustered by Member States representing in toto little more than 10 per cent [sic] of the world population, 4 percent of the world’s gross national product, and 3.5 per cent [sic] of the United Nations budget contributions. “This is perhaps one of the major problems in international rule-making today: the distortion of the real weight of States in the making of such rules by the precept of ‘one State, one vote’ which is based on a misrepresentation of the principle of equality of States, or an unwarranted anthropomorphization of the State and the fallacious transposition to it of the principle of ‘one person, one vote’, which incidentally, on account of the vastly divergent population sizes of States, is itself a repudiation of the latter principle.”[12]

Though some of the specific numbers have changed in the decades since Cheng listed them, the point remains just as valid today.

Likewise, attempting to value countries’ input into the international lawmaking process by their population would still leave the problems of vast different in the degree to which those governments actually represent their populations.[13] This critique also goes for attempts to (as a reading of the Vienna Convention on the law of Treaties might lead one to do, and some scholars in fact do[14]) categorize jus cogens norms as simply a strong custom. This is true insofar as there a similar “democratic deficit”[15] with regard to custom, and a similar potential for a disjunction between the practice of a majority of states and the practices of the governments of the countries which provide more of total GDP and/or relatively better represent their populations.[16] While a positivist would argue that state practice (of the sort which helps to form customary international law), can be evidence of consent to a jus cogens norm,[17] the issue of dissenting interpretations of the same rules (mentioned in the foregoing discussion of consensus) remains. Additionally, there is an additional issue with procedure given the relative lack of development of international bodies in terms of making law.[18] It might be argued that this simply illustrates the need for clearer procedures, but any attempt to define proper international procedure necessarily requires some pre-existing account of international law.

A similarity between peremptory norms and natural law has been acknowledged in the scholarly literature. For example, more generally, “many writers have likened jus cogens norms to the historic value-based ‘natural law’ approach to international legal theory,” and the quoted writer notes, more specifically, that “the modern jus ad bellum has many of its roots in the ‘just war’ theory, an approach to warfare that is clearly embedded in natural law thinking. Thus, jus cogens and the jus ad bellum share common natural law underpinnings such that one might view them as a perfect conceptual fit.”[19] At the same time, many scholars have attempted to provide such theoretical justification for limits on state action without adhering to natural law. In the positivist view of things (as far as variants of positivism that include jus cogens norms go), peremptory norms in modern international law are an alternative to natural law theories:

“although natural law theory is based on a belief that there exist concepts exterior to and above positive law and which are contained in overriding fundamental binding norms, jus cogens is not. On the contrary norms of jus cogens form an integral part of ‘positive’ law itself and are defined and recognized by international law. As will be seen, these norms are norms which are accepted and recognized by the international community as norms from which no derogation is permitted. Therefore although as with natural law theories, most of these norms derive from ethical or sociological considerations, their character derives from within international law and from the will of States.”[20]

This of course does not contradict a simultaneous grounding of the norms in natural law. Within natural law theories as applied to national legal systems, positive law is a necessary adjunct of natural law insofar as it gives specification to the natural law. A good analogy within positive law is found in the U.S. Constitution’s relationship to specific acts of Congress. If a person wishes to act in accord with American law, one doesn’t choose between “constitutional law” and “legislative law.” Legislative law is a necessary implementation of constitutional law, and legislation derives its authority from the Constitution. Likewise, there is no reason no choose between a theory that includes natural law and a theory that includes positive law. If a natural law theory is accepted, then positive law will be understood to (when correct) give specification to a principle contained in the natural law, and natural law will serve as a measuring stick with which to gauge the propriety of positive law legal enactments. Natural law (according to its advocates) serves both as a foundation for positive law in general and as a way to better articulate the intersection between moral and legal norms (and even to provide reasons for respecting some unjust laws[21]).

In international law, the outworking of this relationship changes slightly insofar as international law is not as clearly defined as most national legal systems, but the general idea is similar. Jus cogens norms have been described “as being non-derogable rules of international ‘public policy.’ Given their overriding importance and indeed because often they involve matters of international public order it can be stated that each and every State has a legal interest therein.”[22]

Natural law theory doesn’t dispute this analysis, but does contextualize it with an understanding that there are natural limits on what “‘international public policy’” can dictate, grounded in pre-existing ethical norms As Grotius wrote, justice and injustice are not distinguished merely by human custom.[23] Thus, the natural law means that there are some things that the positive law cannot (rightly) do, this applies to complex national legal systems and applies to the less defined rulemaking procedures of international law. This helps to explain how there can be norms that states cannot derogate from in a way consensus alone does not (if consensus is grounded solely in consent, it is difficult to say that a treaty states have agreed to is invalid on the basis of a prior norm that they purportedly cannot withdraw from).

This does not mean there is no place for custom, or even for the development of the fundamental norms.[24] A natural law theorist can believe that states can come to recognize the desirability of new customary norms of international law.[25] The reasons for this might range from serious moral reflection on already existing circumstances to the existence of new technology or novel circumstances.[26] For example, see John Finnis’s discussion of custom:

“the general authoritativeness of custom depends upon the fact that custom-formation has been adopted in the international community as an appropriate method of rule-creation. For, given this fact, recognition of the authoritativeness of particular customs affords all states an opportunity of furthering the common good of the international community by solving interaction and co-ordination problems otherwise insoluble. And this opportunity is the root of all legal authority, whether it be the authority of rulers or (as here) of rules.”

[27] Likewise, with regard to fundamental norms, their outworking would naturally involve developing understandings of what constitutes a violation. For a relatively simple example, the use of technology to torture in novel ways is one potential example of this—if one accepts that there is a jus cogens norm against torture, then defining torture may become more complex as technology does. Likewise, cultures that did not accept the slave trade as a violation of human rights have gradually come to consider it to be so—recall the dramatic shift of Britain on this issue—and this is consistent with natural law insofar as natural law supposes that the law is discovered by people who then may choose to enact it into positive law (so development is possible both in terms of subjective human understanding of what the natural law entails and in terms of how well it is reflected in positive law).

Non-natural law theories have themselves evolved, but have not succeeded in solving the problems above, and indeed, any attempt to defend a non-natural law theory would have to explain it in ways which would start to look like natural law theory. One recent attempt at a novel solution to defining peremptory norms (purportedly without adhering to a natural law theory, though also indicating that the new theory was distinct from positivism) is found in a 2009 article which argues that international law norms should be analyzed in terms of a fiduciary responsibility states bear their citizens and the international community. The writer attempts to paint this as an alternative to natural law.

“Although some peremptory norms such as the prohibitions against genocide and slavery are relatively uncontroversial across the international community of states, it is by no means clear how natural law theory would resolve disputes over the scope or content of less well-defined norms, such as the prohibition against torture, once jus cogens is uncoupled from state consent. More troubling still, natural law theory, like legal positivism, struggles to explain how peremptory norms can place substantive limits on state action without eviscerating the concept of state sovereignty. For these and other reasons, most international courts and publicists of the last half-century have eschewed reliance on natural law in favor of other theories of jus cogens.”[28]

There is a kernel of truth to the argument regarding the opaqueness of natural law theory as applied to specific situations, which will be returned to later. However, this law review article’s own text directly shows reliance on an ideal of natural rights[29] (in the form of dozens of references to Kant as an authority) which requires a version of natural law to justify itself. “Our theory draws on the work of Immanuel Kant, but from an overlooked passage in the Doctrine of Right.”[30] Of course, if the writer is drawing on Kant for a doctrine of human rights, then the writer is drawing on natural law for his theory of international law.[31] This writer all but makes this clear: “we turn to Kant’s explication of the moral basis of fiduciary relationships: the innate right of humanity of the person subject to fiduciary power. We illustrate the fiduciary model’s ability to generate jus cogens norms using the prohibitions against slavery and discrimination as examples.”[32]

With regard to the question of state sovereignty, Criddle and Fox-Decent indicate that a fiduciary theory upholds it by making states (individually) responsible for implementing international law norms, insofar as international law norms represent an obligation that they owe to their own citizens and to other human beings more generally.[33] They claim that his theory (besides respecting sovereignty) succeeds in placing limits on it: “Most significantly, the framework delivers on the promise of the fiduciary model to show how jus cogens norms can be both nonderogable and mandatory independently of state consent.”[34] However, these authors appear to be, without heartily affirming what they are doing, engaging in a process which is more consistently done by natural law theorists (for example, John Finnis). That is, an ethical norm is identified, held to impose an obligation on the state (as being bound by the same moral norms that bind the rest of humanity in general) which has a vocation to implement those norms in a particular way. It appears that Criddle and Fox-Decent think the state has a responsibility to allow people to “lead a quite life,”[35] which places substantive limits on what it is proper for the state to do. Their article takes its ethics from Kant (who believed in a variant of natural law). Thus, their claim to be offering a third theory just clouds the issue. Some of the statements about the basis of that theory cloud the issue further. “Instead, as we shall now see, the ultimate basis of jus cogens rests within the very concept that tends to be pitted against it: sovereignty.”[36] It would be better to simply have affirmed the basic natural law foundation on which they are building their case anyway (Locke, Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence, Kant, etc.), and then move forward with their understanding of the relationship of jus cogens norms to fiduciary theory.

As it is, Criddle and Fox-Decent use much of the reasoning of natural law theory. “Policies of annihilation and systemic domination necessarily treat their victims as mere means, and aim deliberately at the extinguishment or ongoing domination of the victim’s agency.” They here use language that might almost be taken straight out of Kant (i.e. “man and generally any rational being exists as an end in himself, not merely as a means to be arbitrarily used by this or that will, but in all his actions, whether they concern himself or other rational beings, must be always regarded at the same time as an end”[37]). Immediately afterward, the article follows this with a “They constitute a gross infringement of secure and equal freedom because they deny freedom’s security from the outset.”[38] Such a movement from fundamental norms to an effects based test (“freedom’s security”) is perfectly consistent with natural law theory.

As John Finnis put the issue:

“A theory of natural law claims to be able to identify conditions and principles of practical right-mindedness, of good and proper order among men and in individual conduct. Unless some such claim is justified, analytical jurisprudence in particular and (at least the major part of) all the social sciences in general can have no critically justified criteria for the formation of general concepts, and must be content to be no more than manifestations of the various concepts peculiar to particular peoples and/or the particular theorists who concern themselves with those people.”[39]

However, “even as an inchoate starting point, the analytical framework that arises from the fiduciary theory provides a far clearer and more principled framework for inquiry into jus cogens than any of the positivist, natural law, or public order theories available today.” [40]

They apparently distinguish their theory from natural law theories generally rather than merely claiming that it is a subset of them. While Criddle and Fox-Decent’s avoidance of a direct affirmation of natural law makes their argument less coherent, it should be noted that the mere acceptance of natural law as a necessary explanation does not, however, solve the problem of how norms should be ascertained, and does not render studies on the development of positive law superfluous.

Different natural law theories have different understandings of what the goal of the moral law is. Kant, for example, argued that the law was something that could be recognized as true of rational creatures as such. “any rational being exists as an end in himself”.[41] Kant believed there was an inner logic of rationality and free will which provided the grounds for morality. Thus, he wrote that: “A will whose maxims necessarily coincide with the laws of autonomy is a holy will”.[42]

“whence have we the conception of God as the supreme good? Simply from the idea of moral perfection, which reason frames a priori and connects inseparably with the notion of a free will. Imitation finds no place at all in morality, and examples serve only for encouragement, i.e., they put beyond doubt the feasibility of what the law commands, they make visible that which the practical rule expresses more generally, but they can never authorize us to set aside the true original which lies in reason and to guide ourselves by examples.”[43]

The particular emphasis given the importance of rational beings by Kant helps to illustrate one area where advocates of natural law differ among themselves. We can compare to Aquinas who emphasized the Christian doctrine that, “intellectual creatures alone, properly speaking, are made to God’s image.”[44] Furthermore: “intensively and collectively the likeness to the Divine goodness is found rather in the intellectual creature, which has a capacity for the highest good.”[45] Aquinas earlier defined the highest good more explicitly,

“the ultimate beatitude of man consists in the use of his highest function, which is the operation of his intellect; if we suppose that the created intellect could never see God, it would either never attain to beatitude, or its beatitude would consist in something else beside God; which is opposed to faith. For the ultimate perfection of the rational creature is to be found in that which is the principle of its being; since a thing is perfect so far as it attains to its principle. Further the same opinion is also against reason. For there resides in every man a natural desire to know the cause of any effect which he sees; and thence arises wonder in men. But if the intellect of the rational creature could not reach so far as to the first cause of things, the natural desire would remain void.”[46]

Thus we see a strong difference of emphasis (at the very least) in terms of outlining human purpose between two thinkers who would both have professed to believe in some form of natural law. Aquinas ties human purpose to God as a matter of necessity (which in turn binds any reasoning about the morality of human action to reasoning about the human’s relationship to God), and Kant focuses more on the purpose of natural law as the development of human faculties as such, with a much less immediate reference to God.[47]

Theoretical differences like this have potential practical consequences for political theory (for example, Kant’s just cited viewpoint perhaps lends itself more directly to secular democracy than that of Aquinas does). That said, it is not always easy to trace the relationship of general philosophical theory to particular political doctrines. However, for purposes of the discussion here, the different views of natural law theorists on the practical implications of natural law are more important than the degree to which they agree or disagree on the theoretical foundations of natural law.

For one illustration, Hobbes (who, his current reputation notwithstanding, at least purported to base his views on natural law) and Locke’s views on religious toleration might be compared. In Leviathan,[48] Hobbes indicated that the difficulty of knowing the true faith was a reason for deferring to the government as far as choosing which faith to publicly profess (in defense of the moral acceptability of this, Hobbes cited a passage in 2nd Kings in which a convert to Judaism was granted permission to kneel, ostensibly to support his master, in a pagan temple). In his Letter Concerning Toleration,[49] Locke used the difficulties of determining religious truth as an argument for allowing free discussion of religion. Thus, we have a similar argument used to reach opposite conclusions with regard to human rights, with Hobbes taking a position at odds with what the international community today would condone,[50] and Locke taking the position which has become relatively more accepted in most international legal scholarship.

Another illustration of the inconclusiveness of the term natural law may be found in the idea of a right of revolution. The (now) most powerful country in the world declared its independence with an appeal to inalienable rights in justification for its revolt against central authority. Kant, like Jefferson, wrote in the latter half of the 1700s. Kant, like Jefferson, believed in inalienable rights that the government had no right to violate (…”every man has inalienable rights which he cannot give up even if he would, and concerning which he is himself entitled to judge…”[51]). However, Kant absolutely denied a right of Revolution:

“as for the uprisings in which the Swiss, the Dutch, or even the British won their much vaunted constitutions, there can be hardly a doubt that if those revolts had miscarried, readers of their history would view the execution of their now so exalted initiators as nothing more than the well-earned punishment of high political criminals. For the outcome usually colors our judgment of the legal grounds, though it was uncertain while the latter are certain. As far as these legal grounds are concerned—granting even that such a rebellion might do no wrong to a prince (who may have violated, say, a joyeuse entrée, or an actual underlying contract with his people)—it is clear that the people by pursuing their rights in this manner have done the greatest wrong. For this manner, if adopted as a maxim, would render every legal constitution insecure and introduce a state of utter lawlessness (status naturalis) in which all rights would lose at least their effectiveness.”[52]

While positions like that of Hobbes and Kant outlined above may have fallen out of favor (perhaps due to the success of the United States and its resulting appeal for intellectuals in other countries looking for a modal, it is perhaps indicative of the relative lack of influence of the events in the United States on his worldview that Kant does not even mention them among examples of seemingly-but-not-really more defensible revolts), they help to illustrate the potential pluriformity of positions that might use the term “natural law” to describe themselves. This brings us back to the original discussions of international law norms.

Immanuel Kant closed his work discussing the relationship of theory to practice with a discussion of international law. In responding to a writer who said that one should not rely on hypothesis and instead look around at the world to determine the nature of providence,[53] Kant responded that empirical arguments would “never succeed”[54] in undermining the general hope that providence was making the world better. Kant then went on to outline specific means of accomplishing this goal (perhaps more interesting given developments over the twentieth century, several centuries after he wrote), Kant advocated a federation of states.[55] Whether one agrees with this specific argument, a modern international legal theorist is under a necessity of coming to the project of devising methods of preserving rights with some sort of understanding of what rights are.

The intersection of theory and practice is illustrated in Kant’s vision of the development of the international order.

“Just as universal violence and the resulting distress were finally bound to make a people decide that they would submit to the coercion of public laws, which reason itself prescribes for them as remedy, and found a state under a civil constitution, even so the distress of ceaseless warfare, in which states in turn seek to reduce or subjugate each other, must eventually bring the states under a cosmopolitan constitution even against their will. Such general peace may pose an even greater threat to freedom from another quarter by leading to the most terrible despotism, as has repeatedly happened in the case of oversized states. Yet the distress of ceaseless warfare must compel them to adopt a condition which, although not a cosmopolitan community under one head, is still lawful—a federation under jointly agreed international law.”[56]

Here we have both an underlying vision of what is right (which Kant developed in his works, dealing in some with basic questions of what constitutes right,[57] elsewhere with how rights properly interact in civil society) and an attempt to explain how these rights would be safeguarded given the realities of state-to-state interaction. Thus, much of what Kant says could properly be supported or attacked using specific examples[58] (such as the relative danger to civil society posed by a right of revolution). Kant does not work solely on normative or practical analysis (or on moral and legal analysis), but works on both and argues about how they interrelate. A philosophy which simply leaves the international legal scholar to assume Kantian or some other view of morals (perhaps referencing international consensus to justify why a particular view should be taken), is comparatively impoverished.

Any analysis of particular international law norms requires a “two-level” analysis which natural law brings into the open. For example, take the aforementioned right of revolution. This issue is highly relevant to international law for multiple reasons. Firstly, in standard international law, states, not private persons, are the subjects of international law (private persons are merely “objects” and do not have the same standing for international legal activity[59]). This may seem to not be a legal question (insofar as recognition of other states is generally delegated to the political branches), however, aside from the necessity of some general legal rule in international arbitrations (as opposed to domestic political recognition), the issue has been litigated within domestic political systems.

For example, within the United States legal system, the question was litigated in the United States Supreme Court case, Texas v. White (74 U.S. 700, 1869), which dealt with the relationship of the legal status of the former government of Texas to the enforceability of a contract (in a rather complicated factual situation, which, if I have followed it correctly, the bonds had originally been given by the United States government to the Texas government prior to secession as part of the resolution of a boundary dispute, sold by the Texas government during secession, and then acquired by the parties to the dispute after the war). The majority opinion of the Court in that case argued that Texas had never legally ceased to be a state of the United States (while arguing that Texas was simultaneously in a state of rebellion and that some of its rights were therefore suspended, statehood notwithstanding). However (while this argument certainly requires some broader theory of law[60]), this case is perhaps not the most interesting for purposes of this paper because of its framing the issues in terms of United States constitutional law, and relative lack of explicit discussion of general theory.[61]

A better example is perhaps found in the attempt of Rhodesia[62] to withdraw from the control of the United Kingdom. In that case, the Court had not declared its allegiance to the new regime, but was still called by the regime to decide cases. Kelson’s understanding of fundamental norms[63] were discussed[64] in an attempt to decide whether a regime change had taken place.

These theoretical differences can in turn have consequences with regard to the legal obligations of states. For example, in the Chechen conflict, whether or not Chechnya had the status of an independent country or a portion of Russia results in different degrees of rights for the combatants under international law as generally understood.[65] “Where a state refuses to recognize a state of belligerency, however, the issue of defining a “Power” will revolve around an entity’s claim to statehood.”[66] There are two rival understandings of statehood (albeit, ones which allow for a degree of overlap), one in which other states must recognize a political entity as a state in order for it to be a state, and another in which recognition declares a fact which already exists.[67]

It appears that natural law theories (certainly those widely accepted today) would tend towards the latter view, insofar as the modern versions believe that in a right to annul the social contract by Revolution.[68] However, natural law theory would appear to still allow a role for recognition, insofar as recognition could itself help to create a situation in which a government is able to fulfill the criteria for which governments are instituted, and thus help to make a government legitimate. Additionally, recognition by other governments could fulfill an epistemological role (helping the provide the court with information about what other presumably informed people think). Finally, even if a legal system explicitly grounded itself on natural law, it is possible that the jurists in such a system might be under a national law obligation to adjudicate claims involving purported governments on the basis of whether they had state recognition.

If a modern writer talks about a certain international “Code of Conduct’s requirements of due care and proportionality”[69] natural law theory allows for a full spectrum of analysis, looking at both moral norms of right (or, as Finnis would say) “practical reasonableness,”[70] and then moving on to the same factual discussions of relevant international agreements and empirical evidence regarding the consequences of a given state action on the civilian population that any other theory would have to go through.

However, even if this were recognized by the international legal community generally, the positive law (in the form of, for example, international agreements like the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties), would perhaps in many respects remain the same. Currently it is the case that, “while Article 53 affirmed the existence of jus cogens as a corpus of nonderogable international norms, it did not expressly ground these norms in principles of natural law, state consent, public order, or any other theory of legal obligation.”[71] Even if (say) every significant international actor had a legal community that had reverted to natural law analysis, the situation might parallel the one we have today, due to the multiplicity of variations on natural law reasoning.

Likewise, with regard to practical consequences, it isn’t clear that, were a Natural Law Party created and swept into office in the various elections of the western democracies, that these countries would, in their international relations, come to the same conclusion with regard to (say) whether to recognize China’s claim and call certain islands in the East China Sea the Diaoyu Islands, or continue to recognize Japan’s claim and call them the Sudoku islands. Many of the same international law articles and cases might be cited in such a hypothetical natural law operated order as are cited today. A Japanese diplomat, could, in front of a hypothetical International Court of Justice Panel filled with natural law judges, presumably argue for relevance of the doctrine of estoppel[72] to the Chinese position regarding the islands with equivalent expectation of success as he could before such a court today; that is to say, the understanding of good faith present in modern jurisprudence would remain, its foundations would change (or perhaps, simply revert to older articulations). Likewise, insofar as practical reasonableness is thought to be an element of natural law, a “natural law state department advisor” to a president would presumably still take into account the practical consequences of toppling North Korea’s unjust regime, or of recognizing Taiwan’s more just one.

In short, the argument presented here is that natural law would allow international scholars to better articulate much of what they already believe, and would tend to include other aspects of international law as subordinate means of applying theory in a reasonable way.

Bibliography:

Bin Cheng, Studies in International Space Law

Evan J. Criddle & Evan Fox-Decent, A Fiduciary Theory of Jus Cogens, 34 Yale J. Int’l L. 331

James A. Green, Questioning the Peremptory Status of the Prohibition of the Use of Force, 32 Mich. J. Int’l L. 215

Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, or The Matter, Forme and Power of a Common Wealth Ecclesiasticall and Civil

Immanuel Kant, Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals

Immanuel Kant, On the Popular Judgment: That may be Right in Theory, but does not Hold Good in the Praxis

John Locke, Two Treaties on Government

Brian Tierney, The Idea of Natural Rights: Studies on Natural Rights, Natural Law, and Church Law, 1150-1625

Notes:

[1] Literally “compelling law”: http://oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/jus%2Bcogens
[2] A consensus view of the creation of peremptory norms might be positivist, but the two are not necessarily the same thing.
[3] Evan J. Criddle & Evan Fox-Decent, A Fiduciary Theory of Jus Cogens, 34 Yale J. Int’l L. 331
[4] The Vienna Convention has been accepted as (at least with regard to significant portions of its content) articulating customary international law with regard to treaty interpretation. See Anthony Aust, Modern Treaty Practice, 10-11.
[5] Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, Art. 53
[6] VCLT Art. 64
[7] Rafael Nieto-Navia, International Peremptory Norms (Jus Cogens) and International Humanitarian Law, 10-11 http://www.iccnow.org/documents/WritingColombiaEng.pdf
[8] Unsurprisingly, there is no explicit acknowledgment of the theoretical basis in the Vienna Convention (assuming the correctness of the argument against reading the “recognition” language to validate a specific theory). According to Criddle & Decent, at 337, “despite general agreement over the existence of international jus cogens, the ILC was unable to reach a consensus regarding either the theoretical basis for peremptory norms’ legal authority or the proper criteria for identifying peremptory norms.”
[9] Which is disputed, see Id.
[10] For another critique, cf. James A. Green, Questioning the Peremptory Status of the Prohibition of the Use of Force, 32 Mich. J. Int’l L. 215, 244
[11] Cf. John O. McGinnis and Ilya Somin, Should International Law be Part of Our Law?, 59 Stan. L. Rev. 1175
[12] Bin Cheng, Studies in International Space Law, 695
[13] Somin and McGinnis, Supra.
[14] Criddle & Decent, at 339 “The leading positivist theory of jus cogens conceives of peremptory norms as customary law that has attained peremptory status through state practice and opinio juris.”
[15] John O. McGinnis, The Comparative Disadvantage of Customary International Law, 30 Harv. J.L. & Pub. Pol’y 9
[16] Bin Cheng (at 184-5) attempts to get out of the problem by specifying some states of greater importance, but this appears to in many respects to be an attempt to describe the de facto situation rather than what laws states are obligated to recognize.
[17] James A. Green, Questioning the Peremptory Status of the Prohibition of the Use of Force, 32 Mich. J. Int’l L. 215, 217
[18] Cf. McGinnis, Supra.
[19] James A. Green, Questioning the Peremptory Status of the Prohibition of the Use of Force, 32 Mich. J. Int’l L. 215, 221
[20] Rafael Nieto-Navia, International Peremptory Norms (Jus Cogens) and International Humanitarian Law, at 5 http://www.iccnow.org/documents/WritingColombiaEng.pdf [21] Cf. Finnis, 18, 351-68
[22] Nieto-Navia, at 14 http://www.iccnow.org/documents/WritingColombiaEng.pdf [23] Hugo Grotius, Freedom of the Seas
[24] Natural law theorists would take a position similar to that Criddle & Decent take (at 377-8), “Some might object that our theory undermines treaties and customary international law by rendering these sources superfluous to international human rights law. It does not. While we reject the positivist thesis that state consent constitutes the basis for peremptory norms’ nonderogable character, the fiduciary theory continues to rely on these traditional modalities of international lawmaking to specify norms that satisfy the fiduciary theory’s formal and substantive criteria.”
[25] John Finnis, Natural Law and Natural Rights, 238-45
[26] His adherence to natural law helped, rather than hindered, Vitoria from analyzing the morality of Spanish treatment of indigenous populations in the newly discovered Americas.
[27] Finnis, at 244
[28] Criddle & Decent, at 343
[29] The discussion of Kant infra is not intended to indicate that his theory of natural rights is necessarily better than other enlightenment or modern philosophers. [30] Criddle & Decent, at 344
[31] For example a passage in which Criddle & Decent (at 365) provide a list of unacceptable state actions, “Some state actions, such as genocide, arbitrary killing, and wars of aggression, may literally annihilate the agent. Others, such as slavery and apartheid, subject the agent to systemic domination.” They then supplement this with Kantian language about the proper way to treat moral agents (see infra for further discussion of this). [32] Criddle & Decent, at 348 [33] Criddle & Decent, at 359
[34] Criddle & Decent, at 368
[35] Cf. 1 Thessalonians 4:11; Romans 13.
[36] Criddle, at 356
[37] General Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals, http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/5682/pg5682.html
[38] Criddle & Decent, at 365
[39] John Finnis, Natural Law and Natural Rights, 18
[40] Criddle & Decent, at 368
[41] Immanuel Kant, Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals, http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/5682/pg5682.html
[42] Id.
[43] Id.
[44] Summa Theologica, Parts Prima, Question 93, Art. 2
[45] Summa Theologica, Parts Prima, Question 93, Art. 2
[46] Summa Theologica, Parts Prima, Question 12, Art. 1, for a somewhat analogous Protestant statement, see the Westminster Larger Catechism, “Q. 1. What is the chief and highest end of man? A. Man’s chief and highest end is to glorify God, and fully to enjoy him forever.”
[47] Though Kant’s philosophy does still refer to God, insofar as faith in providence is required in certain human actions. Cf. Immanuel Kant, On the Old Saw: That May Be Right in Theory but It Won’t Work in Practice, trans. E.B. Ashton, 76-8
[48] Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3207/3207-h/3207-h.htm
[49] John Locke, A Letter Concerning Toleration, http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=LocTole.xml&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=all
[50] Publicly anyway, the picture looks somewhat different if the actual practices of countries like China are taken into account, but the victory of the views advocated in Locke’s Letter on Toleration may be seen in how even totalitarian regimes purport to honor religious rights, and claim that there restrictions are along the lines of time, place, and manner restrictions, rather than denying the principle directly (at least as far as their statements to the international community are concerned).
[51] Immanuel Kant, On the Old Saw: That May Be Right in Theory but It Won’t Work in Practice, trans. E.B. Ashton, 72
[52] Id. 69
[53] Id. 76
[54] Id. 78
[55] As he had elsewhere, in his Perpetual Peace
[56] Immanuel Kant, On the Old Saw: That May Be Right in Theory but It Won’t Work in Practice, trans. E.B. Ashton, 78-9
[57] As in his Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals
[58] Though, in my opinion, he likely is straying a bit too far away from the actual world when he says things like (in Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals: http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/5682/pg5682.html) “Thus not only are moral laws with their principles essentially distinguished from every other kind of practical knowledge in which there is anything empirical, but all moral philosophy rests wholly on its pure part. When applied to man, it does not borrow the least thing from the knowledge of man himself (anthropology), but gives laws a priori to him as a rational being.” He immediately qualifies this by saying, “No doubt these laws require a judgment sharpened by experience,” but the criticism remains. Of course, as indicated, the point here is not to defend Kant generally (though hopefully it can be seen that his frank use of normative categories leads to clearer reasoning than some modern writers).
[59] Though the issue is complicated by the fact that intergovernmental organizations are often classed as subjects of international law for some purposes.
[60] And this is certainly true of the Court’s distinction between a lawful and a de facto government and the legal effects by acts of one that was only de facto: “It may be said, perhaps with sufficient accuracy, that acts necessary to peace and good order among citizens, such for example, as acts sanctioning and protecting marriage and the domestic relations, governing the course of descents, regulating the conveyance and transfer of property, real and personal, and providing remedies for injuries to person and estate, and other similar acts, which would be valid if emanating from a lawful government must be regarded in general as valid when proceeding from an actual, though unlawful, government, and that acts in furtherance or support of rebellion against the United States, or intended to defeat the just rights of citizens, and other acts of like nature, must, in general, be regarded as invalid and void.”
[61] The dissent indicated that Texas was at the time of the dispute “held and governed as a conquered province by military force” and indicated that determining whether it was a state of the union or not was a political question, while apparently thinking that secession had actually taken Texas out of the Union—with Texas responsible, as to the citizen with which the state was in dispute, for honoring the commitments it had made while claiming sovereignty (Grier, J.); a separate opinion agreed with the dissent “as to the incapability of the State of Texas” while agreeing with the majority on the merits (Swayne, J.).
[62] Now under another political regime and known as Zimbabwe.
[63] T. C. Hopton, Grundnorm and Constitution: The Legitimacy of Politics. (1978) 24 McGill L.J. 72 http://lawjournal.mcgill.ca/documents/24/1/hopton.pdf
[64] Incorrectly, according to the author of the article.
[65] Duncan B. Hollis, Accountability in Chechnya—Addressing Internal Matters with Legal and Political International Norms, 36 B.C. L. Rev 793
[66] Hollis, Supra, at, 814
[67] Cf. Hollis, Supra, at 814 “Two schools of thought exist in international law with respect to when an entity constitutes a state: the constitutive view and the declarative view. 137 The constitutive theory contends that an entity does not become a state until other states recognize it as such. 138 Under this view, recognition functions as the constitutive act, determining as a matter of law the entity’s claim to the rights and obligations of statehood. 139 The declarative view, on the other hand, holds that entities become states under international law, not by recognition, but by possession of certain objective criteria: (i) a permanent population, (ii) a defined territory, (iii) a government, and (iv) the capacity to enter into relations with other states.”
[68] This is contrary to (for example) Hobbes, often claimed as the original social contract theorist, though he would also hold to a “declarative” view of the relationship between sovereignty in statehood because, even though he believed rebellion was generally illegitimate, he did believe that after a government (unjustly) took power, a new social contract could be formed with it. Cf. Leviathan.
[69] Hollis, Supra, at 844
[70] Finnis, 3
[71] Criddle & Decent, at 338, where they also note: “the VCLT adopted the general concept of jus cogens without expressly codifying any of the competing foundational theories of peremptory norms in international law.”
[72] I. C. MacGibbon, Estoppel in International Law, 7 International and Comparative Law Quarterly, 468

Church Growth and Unity in Faith and Practice

“‘I do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word; that they may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me.’” (John 17:20-21.)

“For just as we have many members in one body and all the members do not have the same function,  so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. Since we have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, each of us is to exercise them accordingly: if prophecy, according to the proportion of his faith; if service, in his serving; or he who teaches, in his teaching;  or he who exhorts, in his exhortation; he who gives, with liberality; he who leads, with diligence; he who shows mercy, with cheerfulness.” (Romans 12:3-8.)

“Christ plays in ten thousand places,

Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his

To the Father through the features of men’s faces.” (Gerard Manley Hopkins, As Kingfishers Catch Fire https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/44389.)

–

Too often people who care about doctrinal unity are unsuccessful in conveying the beauty which is involved in unifying Christians in all their diverse gifts and individuality—but imagine the Christian church throughout the world as a symphony where many instruments are currently out of tune and many of the musicians are ignoring each-other. Suppose that the symphony won’t be quite perfect before the world ends, but that its Great Conductor is in the process of bringing it into much greater harmony than it is at present. If God is calling Christ’s church into greater unity, shouldn’t we do what we can to play our parts well and to (so to speak) help the performers around us do the same?
This note is designed to respond to the popular idea that the church should focus on things essential to salvation rather than on areas of theology that are not essential to salvation, and on encouraging people to get saved (and on generally being kind to other people) rather than on spending effort in trying to get different types of Christians to be unified. I believe many of these areas of Christian work complement each-other, and that work in one area can aid work in others—the different aspects of the Christian life are not a zero sum game.

My argument is that “essential” beliefs differ from person to person, and that even non-essential beliefs are needed to support the essential ones. My argument is also that the Bible paints a picture for healthy Christian life and mutual love which requires unity in many of the things American Christians tend to say are secondary—especially in the sacraments. I’m going to argue that the sort of unity-in-diversity the bible asks of us actually makes the church both more able to convert, and involves a fuller fellowship between individual Christians and use of their individual gifts than the way we often do things here in contemporary America.[i]

Many American Christians “get” unity much more when it is applied at the congregational level.[ii] However, when unity in faith and practice is advocated more broadly, these people may have a reaction along the lines of: “I’m saved, and I have good Christian fellowship in my congregation, so these other issues can wait till I get to heaven.” (The first thing and last things in that sentence are likely to be spoken, the thought between the commas is perhaps part of the background “feeling” even if not articulated.)

In Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis answered the question of the worth of Christianity considering that there are good atheists and bad Christians by suggesting that a hypothetical nice atheist would be a better version of themselves if they were a Christian and a hypothetical mean Christian would be a worse version of themselves if they were not a Christian (Mere Christianity, 207-217). Similarly, if you are happy with your relationship to your congregation and have things pretty good and aren’t too troubled by your congregation’s division from many other Christians, I suggest that many of the good things you see may be quite real—but that you may be missing out on a fuller version of those good things (and perhaps some others you haven’t seen the need for) which you could experience were the divisions that stand between your congregation and those other congregations healed. Further, many of the good things your congregation has may prove more durable if its divisions with other Christians are even partially healed.

It seems common these days for people to get that Christianity is better done in a community—without those people extending the idea very much to unity among Christian communities. (Unity with other Christians is often limited to the idea of being nice to them, which, while not bad (2 Timothy 2:24), stops short of the full biblical picture.)

The idea of the congregation as a place where Christians bear with each-other’s differences is seen by many evangelicals. So, many will see the need to have a congregation that allows people to overcome differences of class, as James says:

“if a man comes into your assembly with a gold ring and dressed in fine clothes, and there also comes in a poor man in dirty clothes, and you pay special attention to the one who is wearing the fine clothes, and say, “You sit here in a good place,” and you say to the poor man, ‘You stand over there, or sit down by my footstool,’ have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil motives?” James 2:2-4.)

Many people would give an “amen!” to this without even thinking about how many denominations are divided from other denominations by differences of class. Some denominations are composed disproportionately of working-class people, others disproportionately of middle class, others disproportionately of upper-middle class or rich individuals.

Likewise, there are racial divisions in the church, with some denominations disproportionately composed of one racial group or another.  Some of this is the result of relatively neutral historical reasons such as churches helping to unite a community as it moved from one country to another. However, some of these divisions are the results of sinful attempts to exclude people based on race.

Different individual congregations will have different compositions because there are regional differences in both racial and economic composition of the population. So long as different ethnic groups are dispersed unevenly geographically, individual congregations will reflect that. Likewise, getting rid of class differences among congregations is not entirely possible because, if nothing else, different geographical areas are suitable for different types of economic activity.  The problem is when these are not merely differences in congregations, but when the congregations that have these differences reject each-other in ways in which Christians are called to be united.

While regional differences will mean that congregations will not have exactly the same economic and racial composition, a practical effect of the fact that different American classes and ethnic groups tend to adhere to different denominations means that it is more likely than it would be otherwise that an African-American and a German-American are not able to go to the Lord’s Table together, and more likely than it would be otherwise that a university professor may go to a church in an agricultural community to find that this church doesn’t consider the professor’s baptism ceremony to be a baptism, and that this church itself conducts baptism ceremonies which the university professor does not consider to be really baptisms.

This is not the picture the Bible paints as God’s best for the church. Being disunited in certain basic beliefs and practices stands in the way of the diversity to which we are called. All our regional, ethnic, economic, and educational differences are supposed to work together in Christ’s united body.

“There is no distinction” insofar as we are united in the fact that we are all sinners (Romans 3:22-23.)

Prior to that, we are united in the fact that we all bear the image of God (Genesis 1:26-27). If in Adam we tend to fall apart into division (Genesis 3:12) and ultimately murder (Genesis 4:8), then in Christ, the better Adam (Romans 5:14-19, 1 Corinthians 15:21) the human family should be united, the differences should work together in a way which builds up our common humanity.

“Do not lie to one another, since you laid aside the old self with its evil practices, and have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him— a renewal in which there is no distinction between Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and freeman, but Christ is all, and in all.” (Colossians 3:9-11.) If we take this seriously, it applies both at the level of the individual congregation and to the church as a whole!

Someone may object at this point, “we’re teaching people the essential points of Christianity, and the church down the street is teaching people the essential points of Christianity, aren’t we united enough if we and they are both teaching the truth regarding the salvation issues?”

As indicated by John 17 unity among Christians (presumably including “secondary” issues) is something Jesus’ prays will be a means through which Christians will convince non-Christians. Jesus’ prayer that Christians be “perfected in unity”(John 17:23) doesn’t sound like it is only asking for a “unity” which merely includes the bare minimum needed to be saved. Even setting that to the side for a moment, the dividing line between secondary and primary issues isn’t so clear cut.

“Now there was a man of the hill country of Ephraim whose name was Micah. He said to his mother, ‘The eleven hundred pieces of silver which were taken from you, about which you uttered a curse in my hearing, behold, the silver is with me; I took it.’ And his mother said, ‘Blessed be my son by the Lord.’ He then returned the eleven hundred pieces of silver to his mother, and his mother said, ‘I wholly dedicate the silver from my hand to the Lord for my son to make a graven image and a molten image; now therefore, I will return them to you.’” (Judges 17:1-3.)

This man was dedicating a graven image to the Lord God—was he a Jew or a pagan? He went on to get a Levite from Bethlehem to be his priest—and trusted that as a result the Lord would prosper him. (Judges 17:10-13.) Did this make things better or worse? Would the modern equivalent of this man say he believed in John 3:16? It seems likely. So, we have someone who can “trust in the Lord” who has a corrupted version of biblical faith.

Now, it might be responded that “well, he was an idolater, he obviously isn’t like my friend down the street who practices a different type of Christianity than I do.” Well, what counts as idolatry is precisely one of the major issues that is disputed between different types of Christians.

Hosea 4:6 appears to imply that a departure from some (secondary?) truths can cause a group of people to lose the whole thing: “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I also will reject you from being My priest. Since you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children.”

The way we act around little things helps to train us for how we deal with larger things (“He who is faithful in a very little thing is faithful also in much; and he who is unrighteous in a very little thing is unrighteous also in much.” Luke 16:10.)

Even if we agree on which issues are major, we may still need to address the issues we consider less important in order to deal with the major issues.

For one thing, there are many cults which use similar language to Christianity but which teach doctrines out of step with Christianity to the point in which, in one notable American case, a group might even call itself Christian and teach that there are many gods. A knowledge of many “secondary issues” (like early church history) is helpful in explaining why this group is wrong about the more major issues.

There are some practices which I believe to be biblical and some other Christians believe to be false which are used by Mormons as an example of why Christianity became apostate prior to the coming of Joseph Smith. Likewise, there are some practices I consider unscriptural which are practiced by some Christian churches and which Mormon apologists also give as evidence that non-Mormon Christianity is corrupt. Though Mormon theology contradicts Christianity on some basic points like monotheism, my answer to the Mormons, should they bring these issues up, will involve taking a position on some of the issues which are considered secondary.

There are some types of arguments which involve an interpretation of the historical evidence which both supports Christianity and involves supporting a specific branch of Christianity. Suppose there’s a report of a miracle which supports a specific theological doctrine and that this theological doctrine is rejected by non-Christians and also rejected by many Christians—it could be difficult to separate out the validity of this as an argument for Christianity from its validity as an argument for one specific type of Christianity. Likewise, if countries whose people adhered to a specific theological viewpoint (held by some Christians but not by all) tended to have stable and relatively non-oppressive governments, pointing this out as an argument for Christianity having a positive influence on the world might tend to support Christianity against other religious views and to also support one specific type of Christianity against other types of Christianity.[iii]

Some people talk as if time spent supporting a specific Christian theology necessarily takes away from supporting Christianity. However, arguments for a particular type of Christianity might be combined with an argument for Christianity as a whole in a way which strengthens the argument for Christianity rather than takes away from it. For example, someone might find within their specific theology an explanation of why reports of miracles occurred in a specific context and not others or of why certain Christian countries are healthy but not others—and so draw on a theological point of view from one specific type of Christianity to help answer skeptical objections to the evidence having any value in defense of Christianity itself.

Another problem with attempting to devalue areas of theology that don’t seem crucial to individual salvation is that Christians getting a secondary issue wrong might cause people to reject Christianity. For example, eschatology: it’s certainly possible to have an incorrect understanding of biblical prophecies and still have a real Christian faith—but if someone’s incorrect interpretation of the Bible is leading them to make false predictions of the end of the world, it could cause some people to be less receptive to Christianity itself. Errors in secondary issues can cause others to stumble in primary issues. So, secondary issues can’t necessarily be dismissed with a “no-one should-argue-about-this-because-if-we’re-wrong-we’ll-all-find-it-out-in-heaven-anyway” attitude. That attitude might bring temporary peace for us, but impair our ability to help others.[iv]

Another important point is that the Bible appears to assign different levels of  responsibility to different people—so if it isn’t important that every Christian think about a certain issue, that doesn’t mean that it isn’t important for Christianity as a whole. Just because a particular person sitting in the pew may not need to worry about an issue does not mean that no one has a responsibility to worry about that issue (for example, an issue might be relevant to someone called to evangelize cults, but not as relevant to every member of the church).

The duty of someone to speak about an issue can vary depending on their position, for example, Ezekiel had extra responsibility to speak up: “‘Son of man, I have appointed you a watchman to the house of Israel; whenever you hear a word from My mouth, warn them from Me. When I say to the wicked, ‘You will surely die,’ and you do not warn him or speak out to warn the wicked from his wicked way that he may live, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at your hand. Yet if you have warned the wicked and he does not turn from his wickedness or from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity; but you have delivered yourself. Again, when a righteous man turns away from his righteousness and commits iniquity, and I place an obstacle before him, he will die; since you have not warned him, he shall die in his sin, and his righteous deeds which he has done shall not be remembered; but his blood I will require at your hand. However, if you have warned the righteous man that the righteous should not sin and he does not sin, he shall surely live because he took warning; and you have delivered yourself.’” (Ezekiel 3:17-21.) The principle is reaffirmed at length in chapter 33.

This principle isn’t just some Old Testament thing, Paul echoes it when he says, ““Therefore, I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all men. For I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole purpose of God.”  (Acts 20:26-27.)

This principle does not just apply to apostles and prophets. We see something very similar applied to church leadership more broadly, “Let not many of you become teachers, my brethren, knowing that as such we will incur a stricter judgment.” (James 3:1.)

The relationship of sinfulness to knowledge is not limited to one context: “Therefore, to one who knows the right thing to do and does not do it, to him it is sin.” (James 4:17.) Jesus said, “If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin.” (John 15:22) And also, “If I had not done among them the works which no one else did, they would not have sin; but now they have both seen and hated Me and My Father as well.” (John 15:24.)

There is some reason to make the inference that we should be careful about what we claim to know (“Jesus said to them, ‘If you were blind, you would have no sin; but since you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains.’”) However simply being passive with what we know, or avoiding learning for fear of having more responsibility, doesn’t appear to be a response to the different levels of responsibility that the Bible encourages. “‘And the one also who had received the one talent came up and said, ‘Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow and gathering where you scattered no seed. And I was afraid, and went away and hid your talent in the ground. See, you have what is yours.’ ‘But his master answered and said to him, ‘You wicked, lazy slave, you knew that I reap where I did not sow and gather where I scattered no seed. Then you ought to have put my money in the bank, and on my arrival I would have received my money back with interest. Therefore take away the talent from him, and give it to the one who has the ten talents.’” (Matthew 25:24-28.)[v]

In a different context we see that people can believe and yet not act on it—and then have their non-action cause them to be criticized by the Bible. “Nevertheless many even of the rulers believed in Him, but because of the Pharisees they were not confessing Him, for fear that they would be put out of the synagogue; for they loved the approval of men rather than the approval of God.” (John 12:42-43.) People who have gifts from God (like faith) have a duty to use those gifts in His service. A bare minimum belief is not something we should be satisfied with. Elsewhere, Jesus says, “. . .From everyone who has been given much, much will be required; and to whom they entrusted much, of him they will ask all the more.” (Luke 12:48.)[vi]

Practically, the difference in people’s gifts means that someone may see a problem not seen by others and have both the ability to fix it or make it worse—perhaps without others noticing too much. Some lines from Mere Christianity are relevant here. According to C. S. Lewis, “the cleverer and stronger and freer” a creature is, “then the better it will be if it goes right, but also the worse it will be if it goes wrong. A cow cannot be very good or very bad; a dog can be both better and worse; a child better and worse still; an ordinary man, still more so; a man of genius, still more so; a superhuman spirit best—or worst—of all.” (Mere Christianity, 49.)

In another part of the book, he wrote: “If you are a nice person—if virtue comes easily to you—beware! Much is expected from those to whom much is given. If you mistake for your own merits what are really God’s gifts to you through nature, and if you are contented with simply being nice, you are still a rebel: and all those gifts will only make your fall more terrible, your corruption more complicated, your bad example more disastrous. The Devil was an archangel once; his natural gifts were as far above yours as yours are above those of a chimpanzee.” (Mere Christianity, 215.)

As our gifts increase the perverse use of them gains new potential, where intellectual gifts are concerned an increase in them means that the ability to be more destructive or more productive both become not only greater but more detailed—for our present topic, note that a learned scholar may do evil things in subtle ways that a typical person would not think of on their own. A person lacking in intelligence is less able to subtly mislead students, for example. A typical person in a pew may not notice a problem and may not have much of a responsibility to fix it—but that does not mean that someone with gifts that are oriented towards dealing with an issue in more depth is justified in ignoring subtle forms of theological distortion that are hurting the church in ways others may innocently not notice.

Our talents, and thus our duties, aren’t exactly the same—this is one reason we need each-other:

“For the body is not one member, but many. If the foot says, ‘Because I am not a hand, I am not a part of the body,’ it is not for this reason any the less a part of the body. And if the ear says, ‘Because I am not an eye, I am not a part of the body,’ it is not for this reason any the less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole were hearing, where would the sense of smell be? But now God has placed the members, each one of them, in the body, just as He desired. If they were all one member, where would the body be? But now there are many members, but one body. And the eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you’; or again the head to the feet, ‘I have no need of you.’” (1 Corinthians 12:14-21.)

Just as not everyone has the gift of “distinguishing of spirits” (1 Corinthians 12:10) and not everyone’s primary function in the body of Christ is as an “eye”, not everyone has an equal gift of readily distinguishing true and false doctrine or seeing the long term effects of a mistake that others may think trivial—but those people need to work together with the rest of the body of Christ.

Even aside from concerns about salvation,[vii] the different levels of reward repeatedly referenced in the New Testament (such as in the rest of the parable of the talents) indicate that God cares about different levels of faithfulness even among the saved—and thus that God cares about secondary issues, so we should as well.

“According to the grace of God which was given to me, like a wise master builder I laid a foundation, and another is building on it. But each man must be careful how he builds on it. For no man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if any man builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each man’s work will become evident; for the day will show it because it is to be revealed with fire, and the fire itself will test the quality of each man’s work. If any man’s work which he has built on it remains, he will receive a reward. If any man’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.” (1 Corinthians 3:10-15.)

The great commission includes a command to teach people “to observe all that I commanded you.” (Matthew 28:20.) There are weightier matters of the law, but the smaller matters help to support them (else why did Jesus say, “these are the things you should have done without neglecting the others” (Matthew 23:23) and, “Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven”? (Matthew 5:19.)) The smaller issues are flexibly applied in terms of the larger issues (“The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath” Mark 2:27), but that doesn’t mean they don’t matter at all.

A certain level of knowledge may be a necessary part of a Christian’s spiritual maturation while still being something they are called to grow beyond. “And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual men, but as to men of flesh, as to infants in Christ.  I gave you milk to drink, not solid food; for you were not yet able to receive it. Indeed, even now you are not yet able, for you are still fleshly. For since there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not fleshly, and are you not walking like mere men?” (1 Corinthians 3:1-3.)

Our understanding isn’t supposed to be simply static: “. . . this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve the things that are excellent,” . . . (Philippians  1:7-10)

There are different levels of maturity in the faith and different angles from which it may be seen—“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom”, (Proverbs 9:10, Psalm 111:10), “perfect love casts out fear” (1 John 4:18).[viii] Christian community should be responsive to people at different levels of need, both in preaching the initial need and in moving it into a fuller faith. Someone who integrates these different aspects of biblical teaching can sing, “twas grace, that taught my heart to fear, and grace my fears relieved” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDdvReNKKuk ). A rather painful alternative seems to be hinted at in a popular song which describes someone’s alienation from Christianity after hearing “fear is the heart of love” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IS8rzOH_fE ) and (as best I can tell) misinterpreting it.[ix] How Christians present the relationship between different aspects of the faith affects the likelihood of people understanding the whole thing.

Renewal of self is supposed to lead to speaking truth to others (Ephesians 4:23-25.) This is done by the one individual to another it is very true, but it also is the same principle which is at work throughout the body of Christ. Paul talks about the different gifts and positions within the church working towards the unity of the faith,  “And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ; until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ” (Ephesians 4:11-13). So, the diversity and the diverse gifts is intended to support unity (just as our unity in Christ is supposed to sustain our diverse gifts).

In order to actually help people in different situations, the church needs people with a variety of gifts. How sad if those who have the gift of service are in one denomination, those who have the gift of prophecy in another! Correct teaching will be of limited use without practical people who put it into action in helping other people, but without correct teaching, even miraculous works of mercy can be misunderstood in ways which undermine Christianity rather than support it (Acts 14:8-18).

The hymn “Take my Life and Let it Be” speaks of the integration of the individual person in Christ, with all of the person’s individual gifts united in their distinctive attributes and all directed to the service of Christ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOh27jMRATA A similar principle also applies to the congregation, and also to the different congregations that have different gifts which should work together. (The working together of different abilities in mutual support is supposed to work both at the level of the individual congregation and in the body of Christ more broadly.)

From what I can tell, many people make this connection only partly. Many can hope for healing of sickness and repentance from sin (James 5:13-16.) and mutual forgiveness (Ephesians 4:32) at the congregational level, and be excited by the beauty of people of different ages and stations in life glorifying God in their own way (Titus 2:1-12, Colossians 3:18-4:1, Ephesians 5:22-6:9), but at the same time many of the same Christians who find this joyful at the congregational level don’t seem to note this as having much in the way of implications for the relationship between congregations other than that they love one another and recognize each-other as fellow-Christians.

Ken Sande writes regarding conflict that there are temptations both to destructively be a “peace-breaker” who unnecessarily aggravates conflict, or a “peace-faker” who avoids dealing with an issue that needs addressing rather than actually working to make peace (http://peacemaker.net/project/peace-breakers-peace-fakers-and-peacemakers/ ). In much of the contemporary western religious world, faking peace seems to be the more common error when it comes to disputes between groups of congregations.  People will say they aren’t fighting with other types of Christians, but there’s a difference between being lukewarm and “neither hot nor cold” (Revelation 3:15-16) and actually seeking the full active peace to which Christ calls us.

Perhaps the problem of wading through major theological disputes seems too big. Ken Sande describes how, when dealing with conflicts between individuals, churches can move from a culture of disbelief to a culture of faith in which they actually try and put the biblical restorative process into action.  (Ken Sande, The Peacemaker, 291.) I think many in the contemporary American church need to make a similar transition when it comes to disputes between churches. Just as we need to trust in the verses describing peacemaking between individual Christians, we also need to have faith that Jesus’ prayer regarding Christian unity will be fulfilled, and that, to the extent we see it fulfilled, this can also be a means for evangelizing people who are outside. We can realize that some divisions likely won’t be healed for a long time while at the same time doing our Christian work with the biblical prophecies of unity in mind.

Even if we will not see its full fulfillment, even the hope of a foretaste of the unity the Bible points us toward may be a spur to action. What the Bible says about Christian unity is beautiful enough to be worth getting outside our comfort zone in pursuit of–this unity is an active living and growing thing, not just an absence of conflict:

“speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.” (Ephesians 4:1-16.)

Different congregations have different things to offer the Christian faith. For example, as Tim Keller notes, large and small churches contribute different things ( http://seniorpastorcentral.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/04/Tim-Keller-Size-Dynamics.pdf ).[x] If all the large congregations were in one denomination, and all the small congregations were in another, and these two denominations didn’t recognize each-other’s ministers and baptism ceremonies, and didn’t go to the Lord’s Table together, wouldn’t Christianity be much weaker? Yet we have many other social divisions which have been combined with theological divisions in a way which is difficult to unravel and which weakens the ability of the church to function as the healthy mutually-supporting body that the Bible describes.

In the Bible, the congregations don’t just remain in a bubble, with their teachings and conduct only receiving outside input when an Apostle bothered to write or come by personally—rather, Paul told Timothy to stay at Ephesus in order to address strange teaching (1 Timothy 1:3-7.) and told Titus to remain Crete and “appoint elders in every city”. (Titus 1:5-6.)  Similarly in Acts, “And when they had appointed elders for them in every church, having prayed with fasting, they commended them to the God in whom they had believed.” (Acts 14:23.) The elders Paul addresses in Acts 20 are described as made overseers by the Holy Spirit “to shepherd the church of God which he purchased with His own blood.” (Acts 20:28, 17-18)—thus it appears that their position is not described merely in relation to one particular congregation. I have avoided many the specifics of many of the theological disputes creating division, but here I will suggest to the Congregationalists reading this: if your congregationalism is a factor in not paying much attention to these passages or thinking of how they relate to organizational unity, perhaps this is evidence against Congregationalist church government. And if you are convinced of Congregationalism as far as the governmental structure of the church, it seems there is still sufficient evidence to indicate that the New Testament encourages more unity among congregations than currently exists.

In addition to the biblical hints at organizational unity, one reason we need to be united is because different types of people contribute different points to the body of Christ, and some theological divisions keep these different types of people from sharing the fullness of Christian fellowship.  Discussing another issue, Vern Poythress writes, “The perspectives are like facets of a jewel. The whole jewel–the whole of ethics–can be seen through any one of the facets, if we look carefully enough. But not everything can be seen equally easily through only one facet.” Later, he says, “The use of a multiplicity of perspectives does not constitute a denial of the absoluteness of truth. Rather, it constitutes a recognition of the richness of truth, and it builds on the fact that human beings are limited. Our knowledge of the truth is partial. We know truth, but not all of the truth. And someone else may know truths that we do not know. We are enabled to learn what others know, partly by seeing things from their perspective. Again, we may use the analogy of a precious jewel. The jewel has many facets, each one analogous to a perspective. The facets are all present objectively, as is the jewel as a whole. But not all facets of the jewel may be seen equally well through only one facet. Likewise, not all aspects of the truth can be seen equally well through one perspective.” http://frame-poythress.org/ebooks/symphonic-theology-by-vern-poythress/ So, to borrow his illustration, when something is out of balance and two groups of Christians are not in biblical fellowship with each-other, it is more difficult to see all truth from all the different angles from which we are supposed to see it. While there are wrong viewpoints, that doesn’t change the fact that there a multitude of personality types which reflect God’s glory and creative energy and which help us to more fully appreciate who God is. Many of the theological divisions have helped to separate personality types which should be working together in one united church.

Even in the New Testament we see that there was a risk of different types of leaders, of “planters and waterers” (see 1 Corinthians 3:6) being surrounded by separate factions (1 Corinthians 1:13), even though Paul and Apollos were working to build up the same church.

James asks and warns: “What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you? Is not the source your pleasures that wage war in your members?” (James 4:1.) The principle doesn’t just apply to individual congregations. As we see by looking back at the history of Israel, individual moral failings (1 Kings 11:9-13) led to the division of the country into Northern Kingdom and Southern Kingdom, this schism provided temptation to rebellious methods of worshipping God (1 Kings 12:25-33) as well as outright idolatry.

The division between Israel and Judah illustrates the complicated relationship of nation and place to religion–the two divided Kingdoms were not equally correct—Judah was relatively better. It was prophesied that the breach between the two would be healed (Jeremiah 3:18); to some extent we may see this fulfilled in the New Testament with one person in the New Testament being identified as from the tribe of Asher (Luke 2:36). Race and class differences in the church sometimes need to be erased immediately, sometimes they need to be gradually overcome. As I understand it, the term “pagan” comes from a reference to rural dwellers who apparently had not converted to Christianity at the rate of city people. So, when there is a difference of opinion that breaks down on regional lines, that does not necessarily means that both areas are equally wrong or right, and this demographic disparity may not always be easy to fix right away. This applies among Christians as well—Arian Christians brought Christianity to some barbarian groups before Trinitarian Christians did (or, at least, were able to convert some groups first)–many of the barbarians who sacked Rome were Arian Christians, were they all damned? I doubt it. Was their Christian witness equally powerful as if they had been unified with their Trinitarian fellow-believers? I doubt it. These regional and ethnic differences in religious belief are things we should work to overcome (and not merely by pretending that the different beliefs are equally good), even if they are so deeply engrained (as the pagan rural people and Arian barbarians once were in their beliefs) that we may not see the barrier broken down in our lifetimes.

The regional and ethnic differences that exist between religious beliefs help to create new temptations—it may be harder to humble ethnic or regional pride when another region or ethnicity disproportionately subscribes to beliefs we believe to be non-Christian or unorthodox. Likewise, putting people of different intellectual gifts and different levels of wealth disproportionately in different denominations makes the temptation to be prideful stronger and more of a struggle to check, because the different parts of the body are at odds with each-other, and the differences which are supposed to mutually edify are now at odds with each-other.

Still, we should try to learn from our opponents. As Vern Poythress puts it:

“we may sometimes add more truth to what truth we already have by listening carefully to doctrinal disagreements. Even when one party in a dispute is basically wrong and the other basically right, the party in the wrong may have noticed at least one or two things in the Bible that have usually not been noticed by the opposite side. These one or two things become the basis for the plausibility of their own claims.” (http://frame-poythress.org/ebooks/symphonic-theology-by-vern-poythress/ ).

Put another way, the fact that an oversized “hand” or “eye” looks rather like the more balanced “hand” and “eye” that aid the body of Christ is often what allows each distortion of Christianity to appear valid. Further, the fact that a healthy hand or eye looks like the oversized unhealthy version may cause someone to reject both the good and the bad and thus go on to create their own distortion. The Christian life is supposed to include diversity—mere uniformity isn’t what God wants (thus in 1 Corinthians 12 Paul tells us how it would be bad if the body were all one organ).

We can get into real serious error by taking some individual truth and separating it from its connection to other truths. In John 17, Jesus talks of Christians being one even as He and the Father are one. The Trinity includes both unity and diversity—the two exist simultaneously. This helps to frame how we should think of Christian unity and diversity. Christian theologians have pointed out that:

“While God is one and while there is unity to his perspective, he nevertheless is also three persons. We are never allowed to swallow up the three persons into a pure unity or to divide the unity into a pure plurality.6 This argument about the divine mind appears to swallow up all diversity of perspective into a single perspective, God’s perspective, which is absolutely ultimate. This unifying center holds together the diverse bits, the individual truths.

“This account of things, however, by-passes the ontological ultimacy of the Trinity. There is a single ultimate perspective on truth, God’s perspective, because there is only one God. But also there are three ultimate perspectives on truth–the perspectives of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit–and these three are not identical with one another in every respect. The Father knows the Son (Luke 10:22) and, in knowing the Son, knows all things. The Son knows the Father and, in knowing the Father, knows all things. This knowledge is personal, loving, and intimate; it is not merely knowledge of propositions. The Father knows the Son as Father, from his perspective as Father. That standpoint is not the same as the knowledge that the Son has.” (http://frame-poythress.org/ebooks/symphonic-theology-by-vern-poythress/ ).

When we think of the biblical image of the church as the bride of Christ, we should recall that this does not exclude diversity of the individual members of the bride. However, certainly we should strive to be one enough that describing us using the image of one person, a bride, works as a figure of speech. However, some types of diversity keep other types of diversity from existing—some types of diversity hinder the diversity we are called to have as Christians, when racial groups or temperamental types are divided and don’t enjoy the sacraments together.

Paul asked that the church at Philippi “make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose.” (Philippians  2:2) Many of the differences we have in the church go beyond the sorts of diversity that the Bible celebrates (it celebrates ethnic diversity and diversity of gifting), and interfere with oneness in mind, love, spirit, and purpose.

John Frame describes and critiques a view  in which different denominations are a good because: “each denomination is spared from constant internal bickering and everybody is free to follow his conscience, indeed to indulge his preferences. It’s a bit like a zoo, in which high fences keep the natural enemies apart and maintain peace for all. Indeed, the denominational fences enable us, on occasion, to speak civilly to Christians of other denominations, even to work with them in some limited ways, without worrying that their heretical ideas will infect our own congregations. Denominationalism therefore allows for amicable, civilized ‘divorces’ among believers.

“But as we’ve seen, God did not establish a zoo, but a church. His plan for dealing with estrangements is not amicable divorce, but mutual discipline within the church (Matt. 18:15-20, I Cor. 5) (which can, to be sure, sometimes lead to excommunication when a really serious problem cannot otherwise be overcome). We are to be accountable to one another. And the natural result of that accountability is unity of mind (Eph. 4:1-16, Phil. 4:2), or, in some instances, agreeing to disagree in love, within the fellowship of the one true church (Acts 15:37-40, Rom. 14, I Cor. 8).” Evangelical Reunion, 40 http://www.frame-poythress.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/FrameJohnEvangelicalReunion1991.pdf

“What God says, particularly, takes precedence over the warm feelings of coziness we have in our present denominational structures.” John Frame, Evangelical Reunion 6.[xi]

Are there any things in the opposite direction? Are there any things which should limit an emphasis on overcoming institutional divisions between Christians? The parable of the wheat and tares may illustrate the fact that there are good reasons not to demand that all justice be done at once (Matthew 13:24-30). Proverbs warns about erasing ancient boundaries (22:28, 23:20)—eliminating inherited boundaries carelessly may have results we didn’t anticipate.  The Bible’s teaching on respect for parents (Exodus 20:12) may have broader application to responding to rules older people created that we don’t like.[xii] Romans 14 calls people to be careful of injuring the consciences of fellow Christians who have incorrect understandings (though we can see elsewhere that Paul doesn’t absolutize this rule to the exclusion of teaching or even reacting harshly to harmful teaching—see the book of Galatians). 1 Timothy 5:4 warns about “a morbid interest in controversial questions and disputes about words” however, it ties this to having a “different doctrine” (verse 3) and to supposing “that godliness is a means of gain.” (Verse 5.)

In Galatians 6, we find both the need to confront others and limits on how that is to be done brought together. “Brethren, even if anyone is caught in any trespass, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness; each one looking to yourself, so that you too will not be tempted. Bear one another’s burdens, and thereby fulfill the law of Christ. For if anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself. But each one must examine his own work, and then he will have reason for boasting in regard to himself alone, and not in regard to another. For each one will bear his own load. (Galatians 6:1-5.)

If we see someone else in an error, and we have gifts which call us to oppose that error, we must remember that the gifts are God’s gifts. “. . .And if you did receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?” (1 Corinthians 4:7.)

At the same time, we need to be grounded on something solid in order to enjoy our gifts together. John Frame in his book advocating work for Christian reunion correctly sees that union must have some solid basis, so certain things must be opposed. He says that one thing needed to achieve union among Christians is to, “Escalate the fight against theological liberalism.” Evangelical Reunion, 136, http://www.frame-poythress.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/FrameJohnEvangelicalReunion1991.pdf He is right in that theological liberalism espouses many positions that get in the way of biblical unity, but I think he does not fully appreciate how some positions on the sacraments do the same,[xiii] and I think he fails to note the degree to which the tolerance he advocates regarding baptism, communion, and ordination itself relies on a specific theological position.

This gets us to the point of outlining some concrete areas in which Christians need to be united. I’ll let ordination alone for this essay (though I have already referenced it some above, I’ll want to research it in more detail later), and focus on two key issues that the Bible at length uses to discuss Christian unity—Baptism and the Lord’s Supper.

Whenever two Christian groups are conducting communion or baptism ceremonies and one refuses to accept the ceremony conducted by the other, this is a serious breach of Christian fellowship, and it is quite likely that one group or the other (or both) are committing sacrilege or are at least involved in schism.[xiv] This doesn’t mean the stricter side is wrong—if the stricter side on a given issue is right and the other side is either calling something Baptism that is not really Christian Baptism or something the Lord’s Supper that is not really the Lord’s Supper, or is doing the thing but in a manner that brings condemnation (1 Corinthians 11:27-34), this is a serious issue and it may be right to separate from people that are doing this. However, if the side trying to remain separate is wrong and is treating true baptisms as non-baptims, or true communion as invalid, or wrongly accusing other Christians of eating and treating judgment on themselves, this is wrong. In either case, we must work to identify who is wrong and then work for unity in true baptism and true communion.

Christian practices will need to align sufficiently that we all are united in true baptisms and the rightly administered Lord’s Supper—the Bible doesn’t indicate that either baptism or communion is a to-each-their-own area. Rather, the Bible ties both to the unity of the diverse types of Christians (communion and baptism bind our diversity together, separations in communion and baptism thus represent injuries in Christian diversity rather than healthy aspects of Christian diversity[xv]).

See this first with regard to the Lord’s  Supper:

“Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry. I speak as to wise men; you judge what I say. Is not the cup of blessing which we bless a sharing in the blood of Christ? Is not the bread which we break a sharing in the body of Christ? Since there is one bread, we who are many are one body; for we all partake of the one bread. Look at the nation Israel; are not those who eat the sacrifices sharers in the altar? What do I mean then? That a thing sacrificed to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything? No, but I say that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons and not to God; and I do not want you to become sharers in demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons; you cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons.” (1 Corinthians 10:14-21.)

“. . .when you come together as a church, I hear that divisions exist among you; and in part I believe it. For there must also be factions among you, so that those who are approved may become evident among you. Therefore when you meet together, it is not to eat the Lord’s Supper, for in your eating each one takes his own supper first; and one is hungry and another is drunk. What! Do you not have houses in which to eat and drink? Or do you despise the church of God and shame those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you? In this I will not praise you. The Lord’s Supper For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus in the night in which He was betrayed took bread;  and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, “This is My body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me.”  In the same way He took the cup also after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in My blood; do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.’  For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes. Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord.  But a man must examine himself, and in so doing he is to eat of the bread and drink of the cup.  For he who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment to himself if he does not judge the body rightly.  For this reason many among you are weak and sick, and a number sleep. But if we judged ourselves rightly, we would not be judged.  But when we are judged, we are disciplined by the Lord so that we will not be condemned along with the world. So then, my brethren, when you come together to eat, wait for one another.  If anyone is hungry, let him eat at home, so that you will not come together for judgment. . .” (1 Corinthians 11:18-34.)

There may be reasons for particular people being separate from the communion table—and some beliefs are so far out of bounds that their adherents should be excluded—but if there is a breach of communion between professing Christians, either the group being excluded is wrong and needs to repent, or the group excluding is wrong and needs to accept the other group—or both are wrong. Someone is not functioning healthily, while there are situations in which a group may need to separate from another, this isn’t just “okay”—restoration and healing is needed somewhere.

When one member of the Apostles received the last supper wrongly, the fact he was in such an intimate setting served to highlight the severity of his betrayal. “‘I do not speak of all of you. I know the ones I have chosen; but it is that the Scripture may be fulfilled, ‘He who eats My bread has lifted up his heel against Me.’” (John 13:18.) Conversely, we should pray for a true communion in which Christians are really united to Christ and to each-other.

Communion is connected to the healing of the world, it isn’t just the private thing of one congregation. “For the bread of God is that which comes down out of heaven, and gives life to the world. Then they said to Him, ‘Lord, always give us this bread.’ Jesus said to them, ‘I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst.’” (John 6:33-35.)

“So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in yourselves. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him.” (John 6:53-56.) Even if one thinks this language is figurative, then the fact such strong language was used (even if exaggerated to make a point) itself indicates that this is important.

Jesus said, “I am the vine, you are the branches,” (John 15:5). Unity in Christ means unity in each-other (if we are united to Christ the “Vine” and through him to each-other the branches, we should strive to be united to each-other via the sacrament which uses the fruit of the vine).

The connection between communion and unity-in-diversity was made by Christians. Augustine, quoting Cyprian: “ ‘Finally, the very sacrifices of the Lord declare that Christians are united among themselves by a firm and inseparable love for one another. For when the Lord calls bread, which is compacted together by the union of many grains, His body, He is signifying one people, whom He bore, compacted into one body; and when He calls wine, which is pressed out from a multitude of branches and clusters and brought together into one, His blood, He also signifies one flock joined together by the mingling of a multitude united into one.’” http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf104.v.iv.ix.l.html

This idea was reiterated by Ratramnus, an early medieval monk who wrote on communion-some of my readers may find his book On the Body and Blood of the Lord[xvi] an interesting read—hundreds of years after it was written, this work reportedly helped to convert at least one Protestant Reformer to a view other than transubstantiation.[xvii] Christians from different time periods and different theological viewpoints have noticed the connection between Christian unity and communion. Again, while (in order to focus on attacking the idea that we should ignore them) I am not providing arguments on most of the specific theological issues that divide Christians, I will note that I have noticed that Christians who take a purely symbolic understanding of communion and baptism seem less likely to make the connection between communion and baptism and the spiritual unity of the body of Christ. If this is you, if you take communion and baptism to be purely symbolic and also haven’t much noticed the connection between baptism and communion and the unity of all Christians, I suggest that you ask yourself if perhaps your theology’s separation of the visible aspect of communion and baptism from God’s action may perhaps be leading you to ignore aspects of baptism and communion that the Bible emphasizes.

Now, on baptism and church unity, the Bible repeatedly ties the integration of diverse Christians to their connection in baptism[xviii]—it does this in more places than the connection is made for communion.

When Paul urges mutual gentleness and patience and urges us to be “diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Ephesians 4:3) he grounds this in, together with our one lord and faith and God and common membership in the body of Christ, our common baptism. (Ephesians 4:5.) When it says “one baptism” it doesn’t just mean we are supposed to be baptized once (though it includes that), it also indicates that baptism is shared thorough the world as one thing, a visible expression of our spiritual unity in the “one Spirit”(Ephesians 4:4).  This reference to our unity in baptism is one of the key things used to preface his discussion of the different spiritual gifts we have been given (Ephesians 4:7-16)—our diverse gifts are united in baptism.  Even the verse about speaking the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15) itself occurs in this same passage which grounds Christian community in our common baptism.

Likewise, in 1 Corinthians 12, from which I have already cited a portion, Paul lists all the diverse Christian gifts and also grounds the unity of these different gifts in baptism. “For even as the body is one and yet has many members, and all the members of the body, though they are many, are one body, so also is Christ. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.” (Verses 12-13.)

It is the one body into which all Christians are baptized of which it says: “. . .God has so composed the body, giving more abundant honor to that member which lacked, so that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it.” (Verses 24-26.)

Because this unity-in-diversity is grounded in baptism, and because the suffering of a member hurts all members, it implies that one Christian who refuses to get baptized weakens the whole church, and one Christian who denies the true baptisms of other Christians hurts the whole church. Likewise, two Christians who are united in true baptism honor what God asks us to honor and thus strengthen the whole church. It is often said that “this isn’t a salvation issue”—but as Paul describes matters, things that involve an individual member can weaken or strengthen the church even if they are really part of the body. Some people may hesitate to accept this interpretation, but what’s the alternative? It would be ridiculous to say that division between the church hurts the body, but division in the things that unity is supposed to be based on (such as baptism and the lord’s supper) doesn’t hurt the body.

Should Paul in 1^st  Corinthians 1 urge disputing Christians to remember the unity of baptism when they had only acted contrary to it but not actually denied it, and we not try and remember (or establish) unity in baptism when one party is actually claiming the other party isn’t baptized? It seems that Paul’s words indicate that we should discuss and determine whether one faction in the church is unbaptized or whether one faction is falsely claiming that the other is unbaptized—going through such a process seems more biblical than claiming that unity can be achieved by ignoring the issue because (as is commonly said) “it is secondary” or “it isn’t a salvation issue.” If we trust both Jesus’ words and Paul (as Jesus representative), then that means that baptism is part of unity—and unity is part of the church’s ability to convince outsiders—therefore, unity in baptism is part of the church’s witness to the outside world. Ephesians speaks of Christ cleansing the church “by the washing of water with the word”  (Ephesians 5:26) and ties this both to His coming to save her and to a practical area of the Christian life—the Bible connects baptism both to salvation and to practical things, saying we should focus on one of these things and not baptism seems very different from the Bible’s way of speaking.

Someone who just wants to focus on the big issues like social injustice and not get distracted by things like Christian unity in the sacraments needs to remember that even the end of hostility between the races and other parts of humanity is, by the Bible, tied to baptism: “For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:27-28.)

The Bible indicates it that healthy life is worth praying for (3 John 1:2)—we don’t need to just care about the bare minimum of living—it is okay to ask God to grant health. In fact, caring for lesser illnesses helps to keep them from developing into something more serious.

Baptism was what Paul had called the church to end its divisions in terms of in 1 Corinthians 1:10-15. He speaks of communion in a similar (if less direct) fashion in 1 Corinthians 10:14-22 and 11:18-34.  Baptism and communion are things that are supposed to heal and provide a basis for healing. When unity in baptism or communion (or in both) is broken it is as if the doctor is sick.

Healing of divisions more broadly is one of the things the gospel is supposed to do. “‘What God has cleansed, no longer consider unholy.’” (Acts 10:15.) “‘You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a man who is a jew to associate with a foreigner or to visit him; and yet God has shown me that I should not call any man unholy or unclean.’” (Acts 10:28.) Baptism and communion give form to this healing.

Are we to abolish the ceremonial rites and dietary restrictions which separated Jews from Gentiles only to accept in their place divisions among Christians based upon different rules for communion and baptism? Even though a major point that the Bible draws from communion and baptism is that we eat together as one body which has been washed in the blood of the lamb? Was it a big deal for Peter to eat separately from gentile Christians in order to observe Jewish rules about cleanliness (Galatians 2:11-14), but now no big deal if Christians can’t agree sufficiently to observe the Lord’s Supper together?  Or is the argument that it is okay for us so long as we eat the Lord’s Supper together even if we don’t share baptism?

The connection between baptism and communion seems to be neglected by many of those who wish to preserve their church’s practice on baptism with a minimum of conflict with fellow Christians—I suspect many Christians who belong to groups which consider most of the rest of Christianity to be unbaptized do not consider this an obstacle to communion—traditionally baptism is required for communion, so, if you deny that someone is baptized but hold it is okay for them to take communion, why is this?

Another challenge to deprecating unity in baptism is that, in addition to the biblical connection of baptism and unity, the Bible connects baptism to the Holy Spirit in the individual when Jesus said to Nicodemus, “‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.’” There are a few people who dispute that “water” here means baptism, but contextually that appears the most likely reading. A discussion of John the Baptist follows a few verses later which both mentions John baptizing (John 3:22-27) and John saying of one other than himself, “. . .He gives the Spirit without measure.” (John 3:34). Further, the Old Testament already had already connected water to the giving of the Spirit in Ezekiel 36:25-26, so Nicodemus own cultural context was likely to connect this water to the ceremonial use of water and baptism. The connection between water and the Spirit is referenced in Acts multiple times. As already-cited, Paul’s epistle’s make the connection between Christian baptism and the Holy Spirit explicit.

The Apostles’ Creed echoes the Bible in its placement of the Holy Spirit next to its affirmation regarding the universal nature of the church, and the Nicene echoes by putting the Holy Spirit, then the church, then baptism. All these things are tied together in the Bible.

Christ wants us corporately as well as individually. “. . .Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless.” (Ephesians 5:25-27). John Frame interprets correctly when he says, “It is the church, not just individuals, for whom Jesus Christ shed his blood (Acts 20:28, Eph. 5:25-27)” Evangelical Reunion 2. http://www.frame-poythress.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/FrameJohnEvangelicalReunion1991.pdf

In a sense we will only be fully united to each-other when Christ returns to end history, and until then we will be left praying for God to come ransom us from our “lonely exile” in which we are isolated not only from complete enjoyment of God’s presence, but also from complete and total community with each-other. We will always have cause to pray “O come desire of nations. Bind in one the hearts of all mankind. O bid our sad divisions cease, and be Yourself our King of Peace. “ (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xtpJ4Q_Q-4 ) That said, we have seen and we can see aspects of this prayer answered in this age. I don’t stand outside this prayer as some perfect “unity” person—as if I myself (both in my own broken character and in my relationship to others) didn’t need it, rather (to pick perhaps an example, and not the most painful) I have many memories of standing outside a church door thinking to leave quickly lest staying compromise me—and seeing this personal dislocation blunder forward and damage other relationships.

Revelation describes the saints as called “to the marriage supper of the lamb” (Revelation 19:9) and describes those who “may have the right to the tree of life, and may enter by the gates into the city” as those who have washed their robes. (Revelation 22:14). If the eschatological glory of those who are in Christ is described in terms of eating a supper together and as being washed, shouldn’t we eat the Lord’s Supper together and share the same washing of baptism in this life?

The fulfillment isn’t complete yet, but we are called to live some of this now.  The people of God both before and after Christ’s birth are described as “the woman” in Revelation 12. If there’s a unity across time, it seems that there should also be horizontal unity among the church in each time.

Currently much of the relationship between the different parts of the church can seem like hands and heads and eyes severed from each-other. This harsh language may serve a purpose in helping to bring people’s attention to how bad and ugly the separation of different types of Christians is, but can obscure the fact that the head and hand and eye are made by God and exist most beautifully when united and working healthfully together in the one body of Christ.

We’ve heard the phrase “it isn’t worth crying about”—this is worth crying about—because the gap between how good things are intended to be and how they are is so great.

When it comes to individual disputes, Ken Sande suggests to consider something “too serious to overlook if it” “is dishonoring God”, “Has damaged our relationship”, “Is hurting or might hurt other people”, or is hurting the other person and “diminishing his or her usefulness to God”.  (266).[xix] This certainly applies to errors which are causing disunity in baptism and communion, because these two things form the basis for unity in other areas—attacks on unity in baptism and communion strike near the center of Christian fellowship.

Now, that doesn’t mean that people with different understandings of baptism and communion can’t have any fellowship. When Apollos started preaching in Ephesus his understanding of baptism was limited to that of John, but he could still preach “accurately the things concerning Jesus” (Acts 18:24-25) however it was still necessary to take him aside and explain “the way of God more accurately.” (Acts 18:26.) After this the better-instructed Apollos continued his ministry. (Acts 18:27-28.) So, his understanding of baptism was imperfect and he was still able to be of use—even so, he was called to a fuller understanding of baptism, the difference wasn’t just allowed to exist unchallenged.

2 Timothy 2:23-24 warns about being quarrelsome, but this doesn’t condemn all disputes. The Bible itself differentiates some types of (apparently rather strong) opposition from treating someone as an enemy (2 Thessalonians 3:14-15). In many places, the Bible indicates that we are to be open to criticism. Psalm 141:8 “Let the righteous smite me in kindness and reprove me; It is oil upon the head; Do not let my head refuse it. . .” Similarly Proverbs 27:5-6: “Better is open rebuke Than love that is concealed. Faithful are the wounds of a friend, But deceitful are the kisses of an enemy.”

Sometimes “great dissension and debate” (Acts 15:2) will be part of the process by which the church comes to agreement.  Sometimes this will be relatively informal, but it could also follow the example of Acts 15:7, where it indicates that “much debate” took place in the formal church council itself.

It is true that a bare dry knowledge of facts isn’t what the Bible urges us towards, Paul prays that his readers “know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge”. However, breaches in Christian unity in baptism and the Lord’s Table go beyond simply having different ideas, and are breaches in the specific forms our unity in Christ’s love is supposed to express itself.

How to address these things is not always easy to discern—the Bible both provides instruction about confronting sin in private first (Matthew 18:15) and also mentions a situation in which people are sinning in a way which requires public response so as to deter others (1 Timothy 5:20, see also Matthew 18:16-17).

Exactly how to work for unity isn’t always clear, but we need to work for it.
One of the reasons we should be careful about how we go about fight for the truth is to avoid obscuring the truth we are defending. As Augustine warned, an over-reactive response can muddle the message and give aid to opposition: “Just as if I in turn were willing to recompense unto you railing for railing; in which case, what should we be but two evil speakers, so that those who read our words would either preserve their self-respect by throwing us aside with abhorrence, or eagerly devour what we wrote to gratify their malice?” http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf104.v.v.v.i.html

A little later he mentioned the danger that he “might be driven, by the necessity of defending myself, to desert the very cause which I had undertaken; and that so, while men’s attention was turned to the words of opponents who were engaged not in disputation, but in quarrelling, the truth might be obscured” (Id).

I believe that one reason, in addition to the direct effect on our own characters and the ways we benefit from being willing to learn from others, that “everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger” (James 1:19.) is to avoid this sort of obscuring of the truth.
We should generally be ready to listen to others, not because we don’t care about truth, but to avoid injuring the truth which they may have. Life is complicated. Paul could say to the non-Christian Agrippa “do you believe the prophets? I know that you do.”  (Acts 26:27.)

Augustine, no post-modern wimp, indicates that, when someone is in error, “yet, if he has anything that is good in him, especially if it be not of himself, but from God, we ought not to think it of no value.  . .” http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf104.v.iv.vi.xvi.html

He says of heretics who convert, “And therefore, in returning into the way of wisdom he perceives that he ought to relinquish what he has held amiss, he must not at the same time give up the good which he had received. . .”  http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf104.v.iv.vi.xv.html

Furthermore (convictingly, as I re-read this quote), “These things, brethren, I would have you retain as the basis of your action and preaching with untiring gentleness: love men, while you destroy errors; take of the truth without pride; strive for the truth without cruelty. Pray for those whom you refute and convince of error.” http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf104.v.v.iii.xxix.html[xx]

That said, even Christian disagreement may be used by God to further his kingdom. Because of their disagreement about Mark (Acts 15:37-38) Paul and Barnabus had “such a sharp disagreement that they separated from one another” (Acts 15:39), though Paul was an Apostle and Barnabas was called “a good man, and full of the Holy Spirit and of faith.”  (Acts 11:24.) Despite this separation, Paul was still able to strengthen many churches on his journey (Acts 15:41) and it seems most likely that Barnabas also had success in his separate missionary journey. So, even if we fail to achieve the level of unity God is asking for, we should still remember “. . .that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God. . .” (Romans 8:28).

Even so, we shouldn’t have a “‘do evil that good may come’” attitude (Romans 3:8). The scattering of the sheep is associated with a moment of weakness among the followers of Christ (Matthew 26:31). God will use everything as part of his plan for good, but it’s our job to work for people to follow Christ together and “. .  .become one flock with one shepherd.” John 10:16

The oneness of the flock is connected to calling people into the flock. Likewise, Paul could reason and try to pursued non-Christian Jews and Greeks (for example, Acts 18:4) and he could also argue with people who were professing Christians—these two things were not contradictory.

Elsewhere, Paul connected conducting ourselves in “a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ” to” standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel;” (Philippians  1:27)

We can hope for a gradual fulfillment of both these things—Jesus teaches that the kingdom of God starts small like a Mustard Seed, and then grows so that the birds nest in its branches (Matthew 13:31-32, Mark 4:30-32).

Daniel tells of a stone which grows to fill the whole earth (Daniel 2:31-45). The New Testament provides more detail about how this actually works itself out in the life of the church, “So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God’s household, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the corner stone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, is growing into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit.” Ephesians 1:19-22

So the Bible speaks of the kingdom, the church, both overcoming the kingdoms of the world (Daniel 2) and also becoming more and more fully integrated, with all the diverse individual stones being built up together (Ephesians 1).

We can hope that (with final fulfillment only in the next age) in this age the prayer will gradually, through many difficulties and setbacks, be made more true, that: “The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one; I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me. Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am, so that they may see My glory which You have given Me, for You loved Me before the foundation of the world.” John 17:22-24

When I was first getting this essay written, I didn’t realize that John 17 twice prays for conversion—unity isn’t just tied to conversion once–doubly emphasizing that we are supposed to work on evangelism and doctrinal unity as complementary things.

So I’ve argued, but I don’t live it fully enough—I am not sure if I live it enough to be an effective persuader. “Often we do not express the whole truth in our arguments. Or if there is truth in our arguments, there is not an equal amount of truth in our lives.” (http://frame-poythress.org/ebooks/symphonic-theology-by-vern-poythress/ ).

I’ll end this with a song that mirrors our call to unity amid all our current brokenness (I didn’t find a congregational version of this particular tune, so the link here provides just a partial sample of the depth of the song https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESqco-7hSM4 ).

May she one in doctrine be,

One in truth and charity,

Winning all to faith in Thee:

We beseech Thee, hear us,

We beseech Thee, hear us.

–

Endnotes:

[i] I won’t be citing a lot of sources from the other side like I often do in an argument, because this is a popular opinion that is often not spelled out by people who write—and people who write about it at length are less likely to agree with it, so there’s just not as many sources to argue with.

[ii] These are the people I’m writing to—people who care about the local body of Christ and are passionate about Jesus.  (This essay may also indirectly answer people who claim to be Christian but don’t care much about the local church—though if that’s you, there may be other resources which are more directly focused on this sort of cultural Christianity, like this John Piper article: http://www.desiringgod.org/articles/the-legacy-of-one-point-calvinism-and-casual-churchianity ).  So, if you think the local congregation is important, but think unity with people down the street isn’t  that important so long as you all confess faith in Jesus, then this article is designed to say that the biblical approach is broader than that.

[iii] Arguments for Christianity as such can sometimes be divorced from the points which divide denominations of Christianity, but the two don’t fit into completely separate compartments.

[iv] There are many other possible examples. It is (I hope) possible to be saved while overemphasizing worldly wealth, but a Christian who keeps wealth and poverty in their proper perspective (James 1:9-11.) is better able to illustrate the reality of the Christian hope.

[v] The Bible teaches that we are saved by grace through faith and that no amount of works can earn salvation, and also makes it clear there are different degrees of knowledge and obedience among the saved and indicates that we are not to strive for the bare minimum expected of people who are headed towards heaven—indeed, the Bible indicates that trying get by with the bare minimum is a possible indication that a person isn’t headed towards heaven at all.

[vi] Another set of illustrations of this principle of differentiated responsibility based on capacity may be found in how Jesus healed children in several instances on the basis of pleas by adults, but when he healed an adult of apparently normal mental capacity he gave the man the responsibility to wash in the pool of Siloam (John 9:7), it was said afterward in response to inquiries about how this happened, “he is of age, he will speak for himself.” (John 9:21.)

[vii] We should avoid building our spiritual houses on sand which will not endure when trials come. The principle described in Matthew 7:24-27 has application more broadly even if it is primarily about salvation.

[viii] I think it is reasonable to interpret fear as meaning something different in these verses, but I think the Bible also teaches that people at different levels of maturity can have different levels and types of appropriate response.

[ix] I’m unsure if the best way to see these two verses as speaking of different states of spiritual development or different senses of fear, but in either case the songwriter has gotten things mixed up.

[x] Though his perspective is perhaps a bit tilted towards large churches and towards the authority of pastors and professionals.

[xi] In my opinion, later in his discussion John Frame doesn’t quite take into account the possible need to help weaker brothers when it comes to secondary issues preventing merger.

[xii] While we may need to respect wrong older people and have a humble attitude towards traditions, we do need to remember that age isn’t sufficient by itself (Proverbs 16:31). We need to be careful of mistaking a lack of overt conflict for the full peace which Christians are supposed to have together.

[xiii] Though he does take a position in favor of baptismal unity on the same page, however I think it is not specific enough.

[xiv] After I had written much of this essay but not this part, I discovered that John Frame said something similar to what I wanted to say, but in a way less focused on the sacraments. “As I will indicate, not everyone who advocates a split or the perpetuation of a split is guilty of sin. Sometimes those who leave a denomination and/or start a new one are in the right; sometimes it is right to turn down an opportunity for reunion. However, it is my firm conviction that wherever occurs a denominational division, and whenever an existing division is prolonged, there is sin somewhere. That sin may be in the original group, the seceding group, or both. Most often, in my judgment, the last alternative is the case.” John Frame, Evangelical Reunion. Page 4, footnote 4. I think focusing the issue on the sacraments helps to prioritize and helps to be frank about the theological prerequisites for union and the nature of the union required, as well as to follow the biblical emphasis.

[xv] Except in the sense that someone might be excluded from communion because they are hurting Christianity, but I am addressing the idea that it doesn’t matter, not criticizing church discipline as such.

[xvi] Ratramnus (monk of Corbie), Aelfric (Abbot of Eynsham.), trans. William Rollinson Whittingham, The Book Of Ratramn: The Priest And Monk Of Corbey, Commonly Called Bertram, On The Body And Blood Of The Lord : To Which Is Added An Appendix, Containing The Saxon Homily Of Ælfric

[xvii] See the preface by William Rollinson Whittingham. The Book Of Ratramn: The Priest And Monk Of Corbey, Commonly Called Bertram, On The Body And Blood Of The Lord : To Which Is Added An Appendix, Containing The Saxon Homily Of Ælfric

[xviii] On the importance of baptism and church unity, I do not share John Frame’s degree of openness to organizational unity without unity on baptism, Evangelical Reunion, 76 http://www.frame-poythress.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/FrameJohnEvangelicalReunion1991.pdf

[xix] Ken Sande also notes that how ready one should be to speak to others will often need to take into account the nature of the relationship, see e.g. Peacemaker, chapter 7 endnote 2.

[xx] Augustine had said it was, “a most wholesome custom, that whenever they found anything divine and lawful remaining in its integrity even in the midst of any heresy or schism, they approved rather than repudiated it; but whatever they found that was alien, and peculiar to that false doctrine or division, this they convicted in the light of the truth, and healed.” http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf104.v.iv.v.xix.html “If, therefore, anything that is holy can be found and rightly approved in the very heathens, although the salvation which is of Christ is not yet to be granted to them, we ought not, even though heretics are worse than they, to be moved to the desire of correcting what is bad in them belonging to themselves, without being willing to acknowledge what is good in them of Christ.” http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf104.v.iv.viii.xliv.html “them by heavenly discipline for the kingdom of heaven, correcting and reforming in them their errors and perverseness, to the intent that we may by no means do violence to what is sound in them, nor, because of man’s fault, declare that anything which he may have in him from God is either valueless or faulty.”. . . http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf104.v.iv.vi.xxv.html

Secularization and Christian Practice

Secularization is a word with many meanings. I am thinking of the process by which a group of people loses its religious moorings (specifically, Christian religious moorings, though some observations would also track the experience of other religious groups), and this note will give some general thoughts on the mechanisms which sustain Christian religious life and the mechanisms which drive a decrease or cessation of Christian practice and/or belief. In other words, how can an area or group of people go from predominantly practicing Christian to predominantly non-practicing or non-religious, and how can this be avoided? Some of these subjects are things I’d like to research in more detail and write dozens of pages about, but I’ll just be doing an overview for most of this note, going from subject to subject pretty quickly.

There are many different ways a Christian community can become secular so it is a bit difficult for me to know where to start—but I’ll start with one that’s a problem in Western Culture (which is both the culture I am from and the culture which has produced much of modern secularism). In Deuteronomy chapter 8, God describes the material blessings to be found in the land the Israelites were moving into, and warns about getting wealthy and then thinking it was all done through your own abilities. However, it doesn’t just say it that simply—it also indicates that a failure to obey and remember to be thankful to God during the process of becoming wealthy was likely to lead to forgetting Him later on.

Jesus said that whoever is faithful with a little will be faithful with a lot (Luke 16:10). There’s also a pattern, which we can both see mentioned in the Bible and see taking place out in life, that the way one lives at one stage of life helps form your character for the next stage. When Saul didn’t obey God and kept the Amalekite king alive as well as “the best of the sheep and the cattle” (1 Samuel 15:9) rather than killing them as instructed, set the stage for him to lose the kingdom later on. When Solomon asked for wisdom as a young man (2 Chronicles 1, 1 Kings 3), it helped lead to him exercising wisdom as a King, when he married a variety of non-Jewish princesses (1 Kings 3 mentions one such marriage, 1 Kings 11 mentions these marriages as a besetting problem) it helped lead to much of the positive effect which might have been gained from his wisdom being nullified and in him being less successful in passing that wisdom down to his children.

One early Christian leader preached on how each stage of life had its different temptations, rather like different seas which had different challenges that required navigation:

“And the first sea to view is that of our childish days, having much tempestuousness, because of its folly, its facility, because it is not steadfast. Therefore also we set over it guides and teachers, by our diligence adding what is wanting to nature, even as there by the pilot’s skill. After this age succeeds the sea of the youth, where the winds are violent as in the Ægean, lust increasing upon us. And this age especially is destitute of correction; not only because he is beset more fiercely, but also because his faults are not reproved, for both teacher and guide after that withdraw. When therefore the winds blow more fiercely, and the pilot is more feeble, and there is no helper, consider the greatness of the tempest. After this there is again another period of life, that of men, in which the cares of the household press upon us, when there is a wife, and marriage, and begetting of children, and ruling of a house, and thick falling showers of cares. Then especially both covetousness flourishes and envy. When then we pass each part of our life with shipwrecks, how shall we suffice for the present life? how shall we escape future punishment. For when first in the earliest age we learn nothing healthful, and then in youth we do not practise sobriety, and when grown to manhood do not get the better of covetousness, coming to old age as to a hold full of bilgewater, and as having made the barque of the soul weak by all these shocks, the planks being separated, we shall arrive at that harbor, bearing much filth instead of spiritual merchandise. . .” (St. Chrysostom: Homilies on the Gospel of Saint Matthew, Homily LXXXI http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf110.iii.LXXVII.html )

The message in this part of Chrysostom’s sermon is centered on the individual, however I think it also has relevance to larger groups. A society can evolve from poor to wealthy, relatively uninfluential to influential, and the way it conducts itself at one phase in its development will affect the character the society has later on. For example, in the United States there is lingering damage to social trust stemming from the various practices (such as forced movement of people and using the law to suppress literacy) involved in supporting race-based slavery. What a group is when living on an undeveloped frontier affects who they are as a superpower. Likewise, an individual who is self-centered in one way early in life may more easily grow to be self-centered in another way later on. David didn’t get to sleep with the wife of one of his most devoted officials (2 Samuel 11-12) and then have his kingdom continue to have the same level of closeness with God that it would have had otherwise, the way he conducted himself earlier in his reign helped lead to perversion (2 Samuel 13), familial rebellion (2 Samuel 15-17), and civil war later on. Likewise, David’s sins were followed by Solomon’s sins which led to the paganization of much of Israel.

People often want to be a little bit evil, to enjoy a bit of sin without there being so much that their relationships with their fellow human beings fall apart. People often want to sin without being imitated. Even considered in terms of their own personalities, people often want to be evil in just a few things, without being corrupted to such an extent that they stop doing the good things they care about most. Saul wanted to keep the best for himself, he presumably didn’t want to be possessed by an evil spirit (1 Samuel 16).

The point isn’t that one individual or corporate failure means everything is all over, however, if a church wants to be healthful it needs to guide its members into repentance for their sins—and not simply leave them to leave young people sins behind because they are now too busy with old people sins. I think this explains why some churches lose their Christian theological center or their members—they’ve become filled with people who may avoid the more disreputable sins but who haven’t properly repented. The church then loses its power as a living force and we see societies which were once predominantly Christian have only a minority which actually goes to church.

One guard against this is of course to have a general confession of sins in the liturgy, but I think many of us (and I am part of the problem), have both failed to properly address the individual nature of sins and to address how those individual sins have hurt ourselves and the church. Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote, “It may be that Christians, notwithstanding corporate worship, common prayer, and all their fellowship in service, may still be left to their loneliness. The final break-through to fellowship does not occur, because, though they have fellowship with one another as believers and as devout people, they do not have fellowship as the undevout, as sinners.” (Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together, Chapter V). “In confession the break-through to community takes place. Sin demands to have a man by himself. It withdraws him from the community. The more isolated a person is, the more destructive will be the power of sin over him, and the more deeply he becomes involved in it, the more disastrous is his isolation. Sin wants to remain unknown. It shuns the light. In the darkness of the unexpressed it poisons the whole being of a person. This can happen even in the midst of a pious community. In confession the light of the Gospel breaks into the darkness and seclusion of the heart. The sin must be brought into the light. The unexpressed must be openly spoken and acknowledged.” (Id.)

Bonhoeffer states that any one Christian can confess to any one other Christian and says that confession to others should not be treated as if it were a law, but says “we must ask ourselves whether we have not often been deceiving ourselves with our confession of sin to God, whether we have not rather been confessing our sins to ourselves and also granting ourselves absolution. And is this not the reason perhaps for our countless relapses and the feebleness of our Christian obedience to be found precisely in the fact that we are living on self-forgiveness and not a real forgiveness?” (Id.) Here I am arguing that the practice of many churches is inadequate, not claiming to provide a detailed argument regarding what practice is best, but Christian communities, if they are going to be healthy, need to cultivate a culture of honesty and humility and of addressing and repenting of sin.

If a church is filled with hypocrites, it is likely to lack much of the power and energy which it would have if it were healthy. People who are living with unaddressed sin are in danger of being overly harsh towards others as a sort of cover for their own sins, or of either rationalizing it away and getting into worse sins (this can take the form of altering beliefs in order to teach that the immoral things one is doing aren’t sinful or contradictory to Christianity), or being timid in addressing the sins of others for fear of being themselves exposed. The more a church is overwhelmed with hypocrisy, the more it is likely to not look that dissimilar from the world, which is likely to lead many people to ask “why bother?” and either leave the church or neglect to enter. Even simply sitting around and not trying to become more like Christ can be a form of moral rot which will destroy the church (See Matthew 25:24-28, Revelation 3:14-18). Of course, even if a congregation has a humble attitude towards God when it comes to things like material blessings and addressing sin, it is going to need to communicate why it has such an attitude towards God—both to outsiders and to its own members.

Part of this is done through the worship service itself. Both the liturgy and the emotions present in the service help to communicate who God is. Though not every aspect of the service needs to be the same in every time and place, it needs to both have order and emotion, both confession of sin and joy. A service may go wrong by being too stiff and never having any new songs (and thus perhaps failing to communicate the creative energy present in the gospel), and a service may go wrong by not having any order (and thus perhaps failing to communicate that Christian emotional excitement is accompanied by a serious appeal to the mind).

In addition to the formal service, there are educational and communal things that need to take place outside the worship service in order to make the worship service intelligible. I think these may be more different from place to place than the service itself. In my case, even though I got a significantly more-than-average amount of religious instruction at home, I benefited from Sunday School, Vacation Bible School, and Confirmation Class. Different things could help to serve the same purpose as some of these. I remember that for much of my childhood I thought getting together for worship on Wednesday nights was silly—but my freshmen year went to a college student service (then on Thursday nights) and thought my earlier negative attitudes about mid-week worship services were silly. The point is, though it can take a variety of forms, some sort of educational and community building events need to take place outside the formal service in order to help make the formal service intelligible to and emotionally resonant with the different types of people who make up the community.

The Christian community has to have a way to articulate the Christian approach to a variety of moral issues. One way a community can lose its way is to ignore the Bible. However, one path to secularization is to use the Bible in isolation from other things. Now, it’s true that some aspects of Christian thought are found in the Bible and aren’t just something any reasonable person in history would have thought of on their own (keeping Sunday Holy as a remembrance of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, for example). However, in many cases Christian morality provides an additional reason to do something that people already have reason to believe is right. “Do not murder” is perhaps the easiest example. Now, it is possible to become secular by just talking about nature and not talking about revelation. However, if a Christian talks as if there is no natural knowledge of any moral subject and grounds everything in the Bible in isolation from the rest of the world, this can go wrong in several ways. For example, it can make the Christian message harsh or arrogant and unwilling to learn from outsiders (which both potentially bad for the morals of people preaching Christianity and for their ability to persuade). It could also make the Christian message shallow by disconnecting it from the rest of existence and making many things which are defensible using our natural knowledge seem as if they are merely based on an emotional leap.

In some cases, Christians may be called upon to stand up for their faith in a more specifically religious way (for example, by trying to make sure that employees have time to worship). However, in many cases, Christians are called to stand against secular society when secular society is doing something it has secular reasons for believing is harmful. In the Roman Empire there was a widespread practice of abandoning baby girls (see e.g. Emmet Scott, The Role of Infanticide and Abortion in Pagan Rome’s Decline http://www.newenglishreview.org/custpage.cfm/frm/123665/sec_id/123665 ). I am confident there are many reasons to argue that this was not good for the Roman Empire, however, Christianity provided people an additional motivation to value the lives of both boys and girls and resist the practice of exposure (see e.g. The Didache, http://www.ccel.org/ccel/richardson/fathers.viii.i.iii.html ); in being salt and light (see Matthew 5:13-16) Christians’ religious motivation helped them do something good for secular society. We see something similar today with the willingness of Christians to adopt girls from societies that do not value them, and in opposing abortion generally. Likewise, in advocating for providing children with both a mother and a father when possible, Christians are working for something that there is evidence benefits society in general.

This doesn’t mean that looking at empirical evidence doesn’t pose any challenges for Christian thought or create any new tensions—if someone encounters difficulties in reconciling scientific discoveries and the Bible it isn’t necessarily a product of a moral failure in them (though it could be, I think that the negative effect modern geology had on my faith involved issues which are genuinely difficult and was not completely my fault, but it was also influenced by moral distortions in my character). Nature can have real secrets and real puzzles that can only be solved with much effort. (As it says in Proverbs 25:2, “It is the glory of God to conceal a matter, But the glory of kings is to search out a matter.) A Christian approach to science needs to take the created order seriously as something with its own integrity, and be careful of always running to the solution which is easier in terms of the biblical text and its interpretive tradition considered in isolation from the study of nature. (For anyone interested in this subject, there are a variety of good places to start, I suggest Vern Poythress’s Redeeming Science as it is a quality book that is available for free on the internet http://frame-poythress.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/PoythressVernRedeemingScience.pdf .)

However, there is a temptation to err on the other side by failing to distinguish between the facts which are known from the natural order and the use to which those facts are put. Someone can be happy to learn about the human genome while still thinking that certain types of experiments (such as, to pick one example, those which kill human embryos in order to learn about their development) are immoral. I suspect over the next century we will see technology used to do horrible things that most people today have barely even thought about.

Over the past century one major driver of secularization has been the use of technology in a way which facilitates people engaging in sexual relationships with people they do not wish to have children with—I was initially suspicious of some of the complaints about this issue, but as best as I can surmise technology has changed society by minimizing some of the more obvious negative costs to these relationships and allowing people to desensitize themselves to behavior which is still bad for them emotionally. The Christian view of sexuality is less likely to make sense to people now that the harm predicted from ignoring it is likely to be something that seems more abstract (like its effects on one’s overall attitude towards other people). The point isn’t here to categorically attack contraception, but to point out how many people’s conception of what is normal has been shifted without them realizing it. It’s rather like people dumping trash into a creek rather than in their backyards so that they don’t notice it, but it’s still having a polluting effect far enough away that they don’t have to address it and change their practices.

When it comes to marriage, the Bible itself indicates that one driver of people leaving the faith is marriages outside the Christian faith. The Apostle Paul wrote, “Do not be bound together with unbelievers; for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness? Or what harmony has Christ with Belial, or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever? Or what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God. . .” (2 Corinthians 6:14-16). In the Old Testament, the Jews were instructed: “Do not intermarry with them. Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons, for they will turn your children away from following me to serve other gods. . .” (Deuteronomy 7:3-4).

Now, what about marriages between different types of Christians? The Bible provides less direct guidance on this issue. With regard to marriages between different types of Christians, the differences between different branches of Christianity pose different types of issues. In some cases, the difference is largely one of language, national origin, or culture and the theology is approximately the same, and any different practices are generally not different in a way that one or the other group believes is immoral. So, intermarriage in situations like that may have some cultural adjustment involved but is not a huge issue of conscience.

In other cases, the theology and practice is somewhat different, but it is different in a way which does not require members of one church to do or profess to believe anything that the other church considers to be immoral or wrong—in some cases the clergy of two different branches of Christianity are required to subscribe to beliefs that are different enough they may not be able to freely transfer from one organization to the other, but a lay member can switch without being held to the same standard. In such situations it seems less likely to create damage to the faith of practice of the people getting married, though it is possibly a bit more complicated than if they were from the same branch of Christianity.

Third, there are some branches of Christianity which require professions or actions upon joining which are so mutually incompatible that one or both considers the practice or profession of the other immoral—in modern American Christianity there is a tendency is underestimate the likelihood of such an incompatibility or not take it seriously when discovered. Two Christians whose religious traditions are incompatible in this way may risk harming the conscience of one or both—obviously someone might honestly change their mind, but doing so after being in a romantic relationship has a degree of risk which seems to be (on average) underestimated by American Christians. There’s a risk of taking claims about God less seriously in order to make the relationship work. Further, if one or both go into the relationship not feeling as strongly about their faith and then later want to become more active, it seems like their church attendance is less likely to be consistent if they can’t get their spouse on board—and if both are lukewarm and from different branches of Christianity it seems that this might pose an obstacle to them getting motivated enough to go to church, because there wouldn’t be as obvious a path to getting back to church as would be the case if two lukewarm people from the same branch of Christianity had gotten married (this is more true when the traditions consider significant portions of the other’s faith and practice to be sacrilegious rather than merely different).

A related issue, even if the spouses are from the same or similar background, is the issue of church attendance. Both mothers and fathers have an influence on their children’s future church attendance and Christian practice, however, a father’s attending church has a stronger and clearer statistical link to the children attending church as adults. (Here’s one article that has a discussion of a study on the subject, though there’s a bit of editorializing http://www.touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=16-05-024-v ).

There seems to be an inherent driver of marriages outside the Christian community given the fact that in many Christian communities there are more women than men. This gender imbalance is not limited to one culture, I’ve observed it while visiting small churches of old white people, churches in historically black denominations, and in churches in Asia (I recall one pastor working in that last region telling me how there was a pattern in which young women would attend more frequently and then eventually marry outside the faith and then stop attending). Unmarried Christian men who choose not to attend church may help make it easier for this situation to happen and thus contribute to the community losing its religious moorings (it isn’t the most important negative effect, but it is perhaps less abstract than some of the others I might point to).

The general tendency towards men not going to church may be one part of the puzzle as to why churches that ordain women tend to lose membership—there’s already a demographic problem in the Christian community, so moving away from the more biblically and traditionally supported leadership structure may help to double down on that. Of course, that’s just a theory, there’s a variety of other explanations which might also be true, for example, given the fact that there’s not much precedent in church history or support in the Bible for women’s ordination, it might just serve as a proxy for churches getting their views from non-Christian culture (when I say “ordain women” I mean, to offices like Presbyter and/or Bishop, there is biblical support for deaconesses and there is historic Christian practice involving deaconesses, though it appears how much that office corresponded to that of a deacon or deaconess in a modern church would vary wildly by denomination). For a short sketch of the ordination issue (not one that addresses every issue or argument, but one which makes enough points to further the conversation), see the paper by C. S. Lewis titled “Priestesses in the Church?: http://www.episcopalnet.org/TRACTS/priestesses.html

Christianity also provides us the resources to avoid what I will call “alpha male-ism”. This ideology does not have a place in the news (well, it be getting more air-time as of late), but it does exist both in the practice of some men and on websites which divorce an acknowledgment of male-virtues from a desire to serve the rest of society. Biblically, simply glorying in one’s own power is not the orientation we are supposed to have. “He who is slow to anger is better than the mighty, And he who rules his spirit, than he who captures a city.” (Proverbs 16:32.) Some people will need to be in charge some of the time, but self-discipline is more foundational, and far more important than being an “alpha”. And in cases where someone is called to lead, Christ calls that leader to exercise it differently. “And there arose also a dispute among them as to which one of them was regarded to be greatest. And He said to them, ‘The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and those who have authority over them are called ‘Benefactors.’ But it is not this way with you, but the one who is the greatest among you must become like the youngest, and the leader like the servant.’” (Luke 22:24-26.) (It’s mildly amusing considering that one of the popular websites purveying a heathen form of alpha-ism has “Kings” in the title—what a contrast!) There is a form of this problem found among professing Christians which wishes to claim the authority traditionally held by fathers and husbands, but which does not also claim the corresponding responsibility to respect other authorities such as other families and the church and civil government.

The Christian view of civil government goes beyond the simple acquiescence-to-an-evil-institution-when-we-can’t-get-around-it attitude found in some circles. “Therefore it is necessary to be in subjection, not only because of wrath, but also for conscience’ sake.” Romans 13:5 (Of course, it may be objected that this verse doesn’t mean we should cravenly do whatever the government tells us without any limitations at all—there’s a reasonable concern in this objection, and I refer the reader to “Junius Brutus,” Vindiciae, Contra Tyrannos: A Defense of Liberty Against Tyrants, http://www.constitution.org/vct/vind.htm for an attempt to wrestle with some of the complicated issues involved.)

There are a variety of Christian theories of what civil government itself should do—I’ll focus on one small aspect which has led to the decline both of the church broadly speaking and more specifically of Christians’ ability to think in a distinctly Christian way: The idea that government should generally be responsible for the education of children. Most American Christians don’t think the government should promote one particular church, and many (perhaps most) don’t think that the government should be officially Christian. One theory in defense of this view is that the government is equipped to bear the sword to protect some generally good things, but not equipped to arbitrate religious truth. If that’s true, doesn’t it seem to follow that education is primarily the sphere of the family (and perhaps church) rather than the state? Education involves moral instruction, how can a Christian believe that secular schools can provide a fully orbed moral instruction? I am not saying that the government can never sponsor certain educational programs (for training government employees, for example), but the comprehensive nature of early childhood education means that, if religion is true, it needs to be integrated into the curriculum. Even many of the early supporters of public education didn’t think it would be entirely religiously neutral—my understanding is that many of them hoped it would undermine the Roman Catholic beliefs of immigrant children. Now, most Christians today don’t want the public schools to work to undermine a specific religion, but they don’t have much of a theory of what religious agenda the public schools should pursue. If the answer is that they should have no agenda, doesn’t that effectively mean that their instruction in morals and history and civics will be watered down so as not to offend anyone? Now, of course someone can receive religious instruction from their family and church or some other source and come out of a public education system with clearly defined Christian principles, but as a general practice is this the best use of Christian children’s time? Is this the best use of Christian taxpayers’ money? If “ all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Colossians 2:3) are in Christ, isn’t it better if Christian teachers can speak openly about their faith? If Christ is the Logos in whom “all things” (Colossians 1:17) cohere, isn’t it best to educate within schools who openly seek to teach within a Christian framework? Christians should work to establish educational systems that will teach secular subjects, but also teach kids that the beauty to be found in mathematics, the sciences, in human history and everything else is a gift from God that should be used to glorify Him.

People shouldn’t suppose that giving kids a Christian education is a talisman which will automatically lead to a good result even if it isn’t accompanied by good community formation in other areas (indeed done badly it could be a source of hardened cynicism), but done right it is still a worthwhile way to put faith into practice, even though it is not sufficient by itself.

The point isn’t that it is always wrong to go to secular schools (given that civil governments are involved in education, I’ve taken advantage of some opportunities thus offered)—but is it good for the norm to be having kids spend a majority of their upbringing in an environment where physical and moral facts are not taught in relationship to the Author of all existence? Wouldn’t it be better (rather than support giving most educational responsibilities to secular tax-funded schools) for Christians wishing to help make education widely available to create scholarships or volunteer their time in order to help provide a Christian education to those who can’t afford it?

Christians need to think about everyday affairs in a way which incorporates their faith (even though it should also incorporate much of the knowledge common to all people). At the same time, there is a specifically religious element to Christian vocation. So on Sunday we take a break from the normal flow of work within the weak—one hymn describes Sunday as the day from which, like the mountain on which Moses stood before the Israelites entered Canaan, “we see the promised land.” ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kir-MpD2X0). Sunday helps to remind us of the consummation when those in fellowship with God will enter His Sabbath rest. (See Hebrews 4.) Similarly, the sacrifice involved in tithing helps Christians to remember that material goods have only relative value, and that they cannot give ultimate allegiance to both God and wealth (Matthew 6:24, Luke 16:13).

Taking a break from our routine to worship God on Sunday, or from the use of our wealth to give it to God, both helps us keep in mind the final day and provides us an opportunity to be patient (impatience is a temptation to me, anyway, and I’ve noticed that I can behave badly in one area, not for that thing considered by itself, but out of impatience for some other good thing).

Individual Christians may deprive themselves of an extra amount of worldly goods in order to provide a witness to society that a world exists beyond mere economics (of course this too can be perverted into an idea that such asceticism is the only way for truly spiritual people to live—even so it can be a healthy witness to society).

I haven’t done much in the way of religious fasting—I have skipped food on the theory that periodic fasting was healthy for someone of my age and weight. However, it seems that religious fasting could be a tool to help keep the church from being too immersed in the rhythms of secular life. Fasting as Lewis pointed out helps to prepare Christians for real temptation in a way similar to the way military drills prepare soldiers for a real engagement. He indicates that practicing by “abstaining from pleasures which are not in themselves wicked” can help prepare one to face “the real enemy.” (God in the Dock page 54, his answer to the 8th question in the Answers to Questions on Christianity section), I was a bit surprised at the lengthy discussion in John Calvin’s Institutes: http://www.ccel.org/ccel/calvin/institutes.vi.xiii.html , which may be worth a read if someone is skeptical of fasting for theological reasons.

Fasting is often described as a way to make time for prayer—I don’t pray as much as I should and am generally a poor example in this area—I prayed more at 18 than I prayed at 28, and honestly I think there’s good reason to believe that this reveals something wrong with my character—that in some ways I was a better person then, even if in other ways I am wiser now. Prayer helps to keep our attitude towards material goods in balance by helping to keep us centered on God and His will, and we can’t simply do all these external things I am pointing out and hope for a good result without the proper interior attitude.

A general umbrella the Bible and Christian thought provide to categorize the problem that hides behind a lot of the diverse problems is “Pride”. I don’t think the sort of pride the bible condemns is necessarily the same as everything we mean when in common speech we say “take pride in your work” and in similar expressions, however there is a perverted sort of pride often leads us to look at blessings we have and separate the blessing from the one who gave it, as if we did it by our own strength alone, forgetting that God is the giver and that he can give such blessings to anyone He wishes.

“Twelve months later he was walking on the roof of the royal palace of Babylon. The king reflected and said, ‘Is this not Babylon the great, which I myself have built as a royal residence by the might of my power and for the glory of my majesty?’ While the word was in the king’s mouth, a voice came from heaven, saying, ‘King Nebuchadnezzar, to you it is declared: sovereignty has been removed from you, and you will be driven away from mankind, and your dwelling place will be with the beasts of the field. You will be given grass to eat like cattle, and seven periods of time will pass over you until you recognize that the Most High is ruler over the realm of mankind and bestows it on whomever He wishes.’ Immediately the word concerning Nebuchadnezzar was fulfilled; and he was driven away from mankind and began eating grass like cattle, and his body was drenched with the dew of heaven until his hair had grown like eagles’ feathers and his nails like birds’ claws. ‘But at the end of that period, I, Nebuchadnezzar, raised my eyes toward heaven and my reason returned to me, and I blessed the Most High and praised and honored Him who lives forever. . .’” (Daniel 4:29-34.)

Things can get even worse than this, Proverbs 1:22-32 paints a picture of Wisdom crying in the streets and ignored, subsequently there’s a day in which “they will call on me, but I will not answer; They will seek me diligently but they will not find me” (Proverbs 1:28) because they didn’t love Wisdom earlier.

C. S. Lewis paints a frightening picture of something similar (at least with regard to Wisdom leaving) using the Uncle in the Magician’s Nephew, “When the great moment came and the Beasts spoke, he missed the whole point; for a rather interesting reason. When the Lion had first begun singing, long ago when it was still quite dark, he had realised that the noise was a song. And he had disliked the song very much. It made him think and feel things he did not want to think and feel. Then, when the sun rose and he saw that the singer was a lion (“only a lion,” as he said to himself) he tried his hardest to make himself believe that it wasn’t singing and never had been singing—only roaring as any lion might in a zoo in our own world. “Of course it can’t really have been singing,” he thought, “I must have imagined it. I’ve been letting my nerves get out of order. Who ever heard of a lion singing?” And the longer and more beautifully the Lion sang, the harder Uncle Andrew tried to make himself believe that he could hear nothing but roaring. Now the trouble about trying to make yourself stupider than you really are is that you very often succeed. Uncle Andrew did. He soon did hear nothing but roaring in Aslan’s song. Soon he couldn’t have heard anything else even if he had wanted to. And when at last the Lion spoke and said, ‘Narnia awake,’ he didn’t hear any words: he heard only a snarl.” (The Magician’s Nephew, 125-126.)

The same book also has a great though rather subtly stated image of how corruption works itself out in society, as the children walk around on the dying world of Charn and find what appear to be images of the people arranged in a historical progression from good to evil. “All the faces they could see were certainly nice. Both the men and women looked kind and wise, and they seemed to come of a handsome race. But after the children had gone a few steps down the room they came to faces that looked a little different. These were very solemn faces. You felt you would have to mind your P’s and Q’s, if you ever met living people who looked like that. When they had gone a little further, they found themselves among faces they didn’t like: this was about the middle of the room. The faces here looked very strong and proud and happy, but they looked cruel. A little further on they looked crueler. Further on again, they were still cruel but they no longer looked happy. They were even despairing faces: as if the people they belonged to had done dreadful things and also suffered dreadful things.” (The Magician’s Nephew, 47-48.) The next figure turned out to be the Queen who served as the symbol of Satan in Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.

Lewis pictures these people working with excellent natural gifts, and then becoming more and more corrupted in their attitudes. Going back to the Bible, wine is a great illustration of the natural gifts generally—it is good enough that Jesus could provide it miraculously (John 2:1-11) to evidence the coming of his Kingdom, but its use in an excessive and distorted way is evidence that one isn’t going to inherit the kingdom (1 Corinthians 6:10). The different aspects of Christian activity, whether in the spheres of family, church, or state, each have different demands on us which, when properly approached, help to keep us centered and grounded.

However, our approach to these present things isn’t just a matter of balancing them against each-other, it needs to be combined with a vision which integrates the present and the future: “For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ; who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself.” (Philippians 3:20-21).

The hope of renewal extends beyond the individual level and applies to creation as a whole:

“For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body.” (Romans 8:18-23.)

As N. T. Wright says near the end of his defense of the Resurrection, “it is the real world, in Jewish thinking, that the real God made, and still grieves over. It is the real world that, in the earliest stories of Jesus’ Resurrection, was decisively and for ever reclaimed by that event, an event which demanded to be understood, not as a bizarre miracle, but as the beginning of the new creation. It is the real world that, however complex it may become, historians are committed to studying. And, however dangerous this may turn out to be, it is the real world in and for which Christians are committed to living and, where necessary, dying. Nothing less is demanded by the God of creation, the God of justice, the God revealed in and as the crucified and risen Jesus of Nazareth.” (The Resurrection of the Son of God, 737.)

Our hope should include both the present and also that God will bring all good that exists in the present world into union with the renewed new heavens and new earth. To borrow an illustration I found helpful in a sermon and in Tim Keller’s book on work, Tolkien’s short story Leaf By Niggle (which currently can be read online here https://heroicjourneys.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/niggle.pdf ) describes a painter who spends his time on a painting but is interrupted by other people’s needs and never quite finishes it. On going on a great journey he finds out that those “interruptions” were things of great importance that he attended to too little, and then finds out that despite his flaws (both in his failure to complete the painting and in his prioritizing his painting over the concerns of other people) there is a whole country in which what he attempted to paint has come into being as a reality, which he is able to complete with the help of the neighbor who so often bothered him and who in life never understood his painting habit. Meanwhile, the painting itself is destroyed. All the messiness of life is transformed into a glory beyond anything the two of them accomplished before they took the “journey” which symbolizes death in the story. So, the New Heavens and the New Earth can contain, not only resurrected people, but even the perfected forms of things that appeared to fade away on earth.

Both human triumphs and inconveniences are things that God can bring to a good fulfillment. “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God. . .” Romans 8:28.) Good may mean our suffering, (“For to you it has been granted for Christ’s sake, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake,” Philippians 1:29; “For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison,” 2 Corinthians 4:17) but it takes place within God’s rule over the whole of history—God isn’t simply privately ruling over the private faith of Christians while ignoring the world. It was precisely the remembrance of God’s goodness as creator which inspired Jews to part with all material good things (even life) in resistance to paganism (see 2 Maccabees 7, in which a mother and her seven sons are tortured, mutilated and killed by pagan Greek troops while proclaiming their trust in the resurrection.) Even in persecution “. . .we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us.” (Romans 8:37). “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church” (c.f. Tertullian, The Apology, Chapter L http://www.tertullian.org/anf/anf03/anf03-05.htm#P478_246152 ).

The Bible puts Christian faith in a broader context than merely personal belief and personal hope about the future—the Bible teaches that what God did and does through Jesus has effects on our world right now. Psalm 110 verse 1 says that, “The Lord says to my Lord: ‘Sit at My right hand Until I make Your enemies a footstool for Your feet.’” The New Testament repeatedly applies this to Jesus, and according to Acts this verse is fulfilled in his ascension (Acts 2:34-36), thus Christ is presently reigning from Heaven. (“Christ Jesus is He who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us.” Romans 8:34.) The bible indicates that prior to everything being fulfilled and death being destroyed, Christ’s reign will have effects on the Earth. “. . .then comes the end, when He hands over the kingdom to the God and Father, when He has abolished all rule and all authority and power. For He must reign until He has put all His enemies under His feet. The last enemy that will be abolished is death.” (1 Corinthians 15:24-26.)

The bible leaves a bit of tension between this final fulfillment and the work which is going on right now. The Old Testament invested this-worldly events with cosmic significance such that the Bible can talk about “A day of clouds and thick darkness,” (Zephaniah 1:15) as a way of describing localized judgment on a particular area. In many other passages, the end is both here already and not yet (as theologians often describe it). “How long, O Lord, holy and true. . .” Revelation 6:10 presents the martyrs as calling, even though it also presents Christ as enthroned in heaven.

One problem that has been a factor in the marginalization of conservative American Christianity (and in the overall secularization of our culture) is the over-separation of eschatology from ordinary Christian life. One problem is that during much of the twentieth century a dominant teaching in many churches has been that the church is going to be removed from the earth prior to seven years of tribulation (which both undermines the biblical teaching on the need for the church to endure sufferings and the biblical teaching that Christ is presently enthroned in heaven). This idea was something that had not been taught during 1700 years of Christian history—during the twentieth century it led many Christians to focus on their being removed from the world in a way which caused them to downplay the need for Christian work in the world, and an emphasis on winning converts which was not accompanied by an emphasis on building up institutions which would sustain Christian life over the long-haul (for an analysis of some related issues in terms of the relationship of eschatology and Christian practice, one place to start is Iain Murray’s book, The Puritan Hope, available free at http://www.revival-library.org/index.php/catalogues-menu/pre-1700/the-puritan-hope ). Christian eschatology doesn’t guarantee material blessings for any particular generation of Christians, however, it does indicate that if we are called to suffer, we suffer on behalf of a God who created and loves the material world. If we are wealthy, we have a duty to use this wealth in a way which honors God as its ultimate owner, and recognizes that it material prosperity becomes worthless if accompanied by an evil life. (I.e. Proverbs 16:8 “Better is a little with righteousness Than great income with injustice.”)

The book of Hosea says of Israel, “she does not know that it was I who gave her the grain, the new wine and the oil, And lavished on her silver and gold, Which they used for Baal.” (Hosea 2:8.) In a similar fashion, we in the decedent modern West often forget who created the material goods which have allowed us to be prosperous.

Hosea a little before this verse compares unfaithful Israel to a spouse who has committed adultery and of whom it says: “And she will seek them, but will not find them. Then she will say, ‘I will go back to my first husband, For it was better for me then than now!” (Hosea 2:7.) That is, the idols that Israel is worshipping will not satisfy, and ultimately Israel will turn back. Ultimately, the one who actually gave us the different good things in life is the one who will satisfy in a lasting way.

We don’t need to reject material goods as in themselves evil. Rather Christianity offers a re-centering to all the other things.

“When the sun of bliss is beaming
Light and love upon my way,
From the cross the radiance streaming
Adds more luster to the day.
Bane and blessing, pain and pleasure,
By the cross are sanctified;”

The theologian Hans Urs Von Balthasar described Christianity as coming into the pre-Christian World “as the fulfillment of the fragmented meaning of the world” . . . “Christianity represented not only a fulfillment, but also a call to conversion, insofar as all of the fragmentary logoi absolutized themselves and thus put up a sinful resistance to the true Logos” (Love Alone is Credible, 15). In other words, the little words and principles and ideas and natural things out in the world have a real basis to them, but are incomplete and distorted, Christianity doesn’t undo the natural reality, rather in the Word created reality “archives its unity and fullness and redeemed freedom” (Id.).

As Herman Bavinck put it, our personal God allows for, “true unity, a unity which does not destroy differentiation, but rather includes and enfolds it” and in God the world is thus “one and yet differentiated”. (Philosophy of Revelation, Lecture 4 – Revelation and Nature http://www.ccel.org/ccel/bavinck/revelation.v.html ).

“Sin does not lie in matter, nor in nature, nor in the substance of things, but it belongs to the will of the creature; it is of ethical nature, and thus capable of being expiated, effaced, extinguished. It can be separated from the creature, so that it disappears and the creature remains intact, yea, much more, is restored and glorified.” (Philosophy of Revelation, Lecture 10 – Revelation and the Future http://www.ccel.org/ccel/bavinck/revelation.xi.html ).

In conversion and (back to the subject of this paper) in turning back from secularization, created life doesn’t end completely, rather it turns back to its own source and its best grounding (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KS3o_160OhE ):

“I give thee back the life I owe,
That in thine ocean depths its flow
May richer, fuller be.
O light that followest all my way,
I yield my flickering torch to thee;
My heart restores its borrowed ray,
That in thy sunshine’s blaze its day
May brighter, fairer be.”