LEGATO...

Between the Dallas shootings, the Hillary mess, and so much more, I've been thinking about the relationship of the Church in America to the moral decay and lawlessness in our society. Now, if you think about it, most culture-minded Christians assume that our national problems are largely a byproduct of the failure of churches to "transform" their surrounding culture. They are absentee in their cultural mandate. Having written a great deal on the cultural mandate, I see that  connectivity as well. However, I want to suggest that the real problem is not "with" the church and its cultural program. The problem is instead "within" the Church. Let me explain this nuance. When Paul, for example, says in 2 Tim. 3:1-4 that "in the last days difficult times will come", then gives his long list of difficulties, it is natural to think he is decrying the state of affairs in the culture. But read vs 5. The treacherous people Paul is talking abo...

“ Of two evils, choose neither ." Spurgeon's quote has been posted numerous times on social media by Christians who find themselves in a moral conundrum at the very thought of voting for either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump. Here’s the problem with Spurgeon’s idea. Biblically there is no such thing as a choice between two evils. Let me explain. Moral philosophers and theologians have long spoken of the problem of "tragic moral choice", also known as the “incommensurability in values.” The man on the street simply calls it “choosing between the lesser of two evils.”   The best known example of tragic moral choice is the one about the Nazis during WW II. Do you handover the Jews knowing that your choice makes you complicit in their deaths? Or do you lie and violate the Ninth Commandment? The Lutheran scholar, John Warwick Montgomery, has argued that such choices are unavoidable and of necessity cause us to sin. The Bible, however, takes a dim view of the...

Long before Arendt, we have Jean-Jacques Rousseau attempting freedom without authority in society. Once Rousseau experienced the conversion of his soul from academies and culture to the freedom and warm sentiment of nature, in 1750, he wrote his Discourse (First Discourse), in which he tried to show that the arts and sciences were the result of human vice, not virtue, and the cause of the slippery slope in Europe toward moral decline. He developed this thought further in his second Discourse on the Origins of Inequality , where he set over and against the genuine misery of the social conditions of his day the ideal of the “nature state.”  Here the potential for people living together with the charm of nature as the central defining emblem of life compelled them to live as a free, sane, and good; in peace and solidarity, not in warlike aggression.   In his Social Contract , he envisions the state emerging from a hypothetical contract in which the citizens do not surrend...

Many Christians believe that Christianity and electoral politics do not mix. The popular model would have us waiting for escape from this “vale of tears” or wringing our hands in observation of the “signs of the times” as we await the rapture. While others are more to the point: electoral politics and the work of culture in general, they say, is dirty stuff in which Christians, called to purity, should not sully themselves. So, different motivations, but the same end: isolationist occupation in the world. But God does not call his Church to be a cultural eunuch. Clearly God wants us to obey him; he calls us out of darkness into light to do his will. But he calls us to do his will in our bodies and in the concrete processes of history. There is no escaping the fact that though our citizenship is in heaven the world is our temporary address. How shall we treat it? Shall we not pick up after ourselves? Or worse, shall we let our godless roommates trash the place while we sit by indiffer...

In 1450, the resistance movement that had been led by Joan of Arc became once again a live issue for all France, when Rouen, the city of her bogus trial for heresy, was liberated by French forces. A re-examination of Joan's trial, which would ultimately lead to her complete exoneration, was undertaken. The process of Joan's retrial and exoneration—which was a public process that engaged the entire population of France—created the preconditions for the founding of the modern French nation under Louis XI. On February 15, 1450, Charles VII requested that the Canon of Rouen Cathedral report what occurred during the trial. An initial inquiry was held in March, and witnesses were heard. The process of Papal examination of the legal travesty of Joan's trial was begun in 1451, when Pope Nicholas V sent the Papal legate Guillaume d'Estouville to seek peace in France after a renewed English invasion in March of 1450. D'Estouville conferred with the King in February of 1...

“The conflict between Rome and the [early] Church is really a microcosm of a larger struggle that both predates the first century and has lasted to our day. It is the story of men and their quest to be like God that is as old as the pre-cosmic warfare between God and the devil. In the temporal realm the struggle takes shape in the form of earthly potentates that claim all dominion in heaven and in the earth. The Empire is said to be the source of salvation and the government to be the great protector and provider of its people. It can deliver because the Emperor is God. But herein lies the challenge to the Church. Because the Emperor is said to be God, there must be no others. Kyrios Christus must bow to Kyrios Caesar, or else. The history of Rome . . . demonstrates that autocratic rulers and their bureaucracies that reject the God of the Bible become utopian in outlook. What they require is not merely the right to rule, but unlimited power and jurisdiction in the lives of their people...

The Evangelical Political Scholars Association homepage is this month highlighting my recent presentation at Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church: "Have Christians Lost the Culture War?" EPSA exists to facilitate a professional network of evangelical scholars interested in exploring the questions that underlie political life. You can share your thoughts on my speech by visiting the ESPA website at http://epsa.tkc.edu/ In case you are interested, above is a rendering of John Locke, a bit of a political thinker himself.

A new version...a little different from Aesop's OLD VERSION: The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. The grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold. MORAL OF THE STORY: Be responsible for yourself MODERN VERSION: The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others are cold and starving. CBS, NBC, PBS, CNN, and ABC show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with fo...

In listening to President Obama's speech on Healthcare last evening, this thought came to mind. "He who controls your healthcare, controls your body, and he who controls your body, controls you?" An overstatement? Perhaps a bit. But maybe it can provide a little more food for fodder.