Christians and Perfect Politicians
Christians are far too eager to give up the public square for the sake of virtue signalling and unattainable perfection.
Christian Nationalism (CN) has been a hot topic for a few years, with two extreme poles occupying the consciousness of people who pay at least peripheral attention to the news. Those sympathetic to CN are cast as the new Nazis plotting to enthrone Franco/Hitler/Mussolini/Tojo 2.0 for a millennial theocracy flying the Stars and Bars, but only after a General Sherman-like march to the sea. The fiercest doom-mongering has come from within the Christian fold from high-profile commentators like David French, Neil Shenvi, and Russell Moore, as well as mainline denominations like the Episcopal Church, United Methodist Church, and PCUSA.
The common thread among the antagonists is to demonize CN as “White supremacy” generally and White American Supremacy specifically, which is a very effective shortcut to emasculating anyone slightly out of step with regime orthodoxy. Indeed, a substantial cottage industry has developed around blowing the whistle on devilish conspiracies1 to seize control of America and deliver the Christian Caesar — impending extreme violence is always implied. It’s a handy trope, and the plot line is identical to the British program to smear Luther and Lutheran theology as the proximate and root cause of all death camps and world misery.
So, it was refreshing to see Albert Mohler enter the fray recently with an endorsement of CN. Even Mohler’s piece’s title is unambiguous: “What Is Missing from Our Constitutional Order?: Our Government Should Acknowledge Christianity.” Well, pass the smelling salts because Mohler is no Federal Vision insurgent from Moscow, Idaho, sent forth to bleach the landscape.
The notion of a “godless constitution” and a secularist vision of the American order are misrepresentations of American history. -Al Mohler.
Mohler’s excellent article brought to mind some of the carping in LC-MS circles during recent election cycles, especially the last three involving Trump. The default position of the never-Trumpers has been that the man’s character and rotten moral fruits are so far beyond the pale that actual Christians could and should never vote for him. This is entirely true superficially, but let’s use our First Article gifts to apply some critical thinking.
Yep, This One’s a Sinner!
Is Trump’s character and lack of morality the most shocking in American history? By the standards of his wilful tabloid life, perhaps. However, you don’t have to spend too much time digging into past presidents’ lives and families to find many unsavory and murderous facts as well as similar disqualifying Trumpian flaws. None of them has been anything close to an altar boy, and it is a general observation of life that men — but especially women — who rise to high power and leadership (including in the church) exhibit a Lamechian ruthlessness and callousness2 that is genuinely shocking to the meek and mild who shall inherit the earth. Rising to the most senior ranks of power either engenders or requires being on the psychopathic spectrum.
Trump does not belong near church leadership. However, he is entirely normal as an American politician and no more or less at risk of being turned into a beast of the field than Nebuchadnezzar was3. Scripture is unequivocal that God raises and lowers all powers of the earth at His will for the sake of Christ Jesus. For example, consider the arc from Luke 4:5 to Revelation 11:15. How futile to think we command the end of history (Isaiah 2:4; 40:17).
If the standard for our politicians is moral purity, then a higher standard must be applied to our pastors. Indeed, they must be spotless and blameless, not just above reproach.4 That standard rolls down to Holy Communion, where everyone kneeling at the rail must have a perfect confession and a blemish-free, sinless life. How do the windows look in your glass house with all the stones being thrown?
Ah, don’t make excuses! Christ instituted the church, and mere mortals instituted the branches of government. Fortunately, we will never apply this standard to ourselves because it dissolves the sacraments, which might be thought of as a type of thorn in the flesh of our pride, reminding us that until death or Christ’s return, we are moving along rather too slowly in our sanctification.
Too Light For Heavy Work, Too Heavy for Light Work
Since we don’t live in the comfort of a Lutheran enclave with blessed princes to protect us and enforce orthodoxy, we must engage with the political realities we have. If the politics is so dirty and inappropriate that we withdraw to the wilderness every time, then we will lose every time. Christ’s church triumphant will never be overcome, but the American church militant seems to be on count nine. Perhaps the Lord is pruning His vineyards here5, especially in the shrinking LC-MS, so that we might one day return to bearing acceptable fruit and escape America’s famine of the Word.
We can rail against the lack of perfect positions on abortion or Zionism, or we can seize opportunities to work within the civil society framework to steady the church and its people against further corruption and co-option. We can complain about Robert F. Kennedy’s terrible position on abortion and allow our kids to continue to be turned into diabetic zombies by Big Food, or we can take a potentially massive win on their health as an incremental clawback. However, if you have an all-or-nothing perfection mindset6, you will lose in life, church, and politics; it’s that simple.
On a balance of probabilities, a Trump regime will be better disposed to the Christian church than a Harris one would have. The cabinet appointments suggest generational changes are potentially afoot, from immigration to energy, trade, employment, foreign policy, education, health, and national security, which may begin to heal some cumulating damage to the nation, our families, and the Holy Christian Church.
Take absolutely nothing for granted until you see measurable wins. Still, we can already celebrate that a transvestite will no longer be Assistant Secretary for Health and that non-binary luggage theft fetishists will not receive security clearances.
Unfortunately, the church has been propagandized and bullied to retreat to a quiet place, and Romans 13 is the totalizing leviathan of the namesake movie that we cower from7. We have stood by while America slouched from a Christian founding identity to indifference to it, and now we face open hostility, opposition, subversion, and sabotage. The salt thieves are even embedded within the church, as detailed by Megan Basham in her recently published book Shepherds for Sale: How Evangelical Leaders Traded the Truth for a Leftist Agenda.
Not too long ago, our own Rev. Alfred M. Rehwinkel prophetically warned of many things that have come to pass in our church and society. He was no Nostradamus, just well read, well traveled, well seasoned, and engaged with reality.8
Onward Christian Idlers
Opposing the sprint to nihilism does not require us to morph into literal Christian soldiers ready to be caricatured as blood-and-soil Sturmtruppen. It simply directs us to be shrewd. If the candidates for your local school board are sexual deviants, then your children will be groomed to perversion. If your Prime Minister cheers churches razed in the name of social justice and historical redress, then your churches will be torched. If your gubernatorial candidates covet late-term abortion, then you will have industrial-scale infanticide. To turn the other cheek in the face of these threats is not Christian love but defeatist madness. Matthew Pearson lays this shrewdness out well,
“[Christians can] no longer rationalize their retreatist pietist politics by simply shouting “love your enemies,” but must actively seek to defeat their enemies who threaten and attempt to usurp their very way of life. A robust Christian politics must be strong and bold, willing to identify enemies and unwilling to back down from defeating them. In so doing one honors Christ and demonstrates a profound love for neighbor. Vermigli and Schmitt on How to Live Out Christ’s Command, Matthew Pearson, American Reformer.
It is childish hysteria and fear-mongering to claim that active Christian citizenship demands a theocracy — the laziest James Lindsay conspiracy gymnastics imaginable. Even so, must we now renounce the German princes who protected Luther, established their realms as havens for Christian orthodoxy (on pain of death), and fought against Catholic warlords and Islamist invaders? Were the Lutheran realms better off or worse off for the bold actions of the princes and their pastors? Are we better or worse off for the work of those imperfect princes?
We have arrived at this point because we have so radically embraced the most Pietistic version of Gospel Reductionism in tandem with a capitulation to secular debauchery. In the name of love, we have miniaturized our worldview and actions to engage the “lost and confused” on a solely personal level, deflating all our institutional muscles for fear of offending tyrants and hurting the feelings of cretins.9 The lost and confused should obviously be engaged, but not in such an exclusive sense that we ignore a thousand worldly cuts intended to tear apart the family, debase our pastors, and install Godless magistrates.
Mohler articulates the point perfectly:
Put bluntly, I do not want the government of the United States of America to establish a church or to take on any liturgical function, but I most certainly do want to see the federal government define human life in terms consistent with historic biblical theism and to define marriage (according to the limited jurisdiction of federal policy) as exclusively the union of one man and one woman. I do want to see boys kept off of girls’ athletic teams and I want our government to be able properly to distinguish male and female. That hardly seems too much to ask.
It is too much to ask because the pleading will fall on deaf ears unless the governing authority has cause to attend to Christian concerns. They will not heed those considerations for as long as we melt away to curtsy and quiver whenever the voices get loud or the companions rowdy.10
Take heart; we have Christian minds thinking about these things and providing leadership.
Notably, there are no Christophobic taboos about asserting Christian supremacist conspiracies in the United States. E.g., The Family, God & Country, Bad Faith: Christian Nationalism’s Unholy War on Democracy, With God on Our Side: The Rise of the Religious Right in America, and “The Real Origins of the Religious Right” are just a tiny sampling of the genre.
Genesis 4:23-25, New King James Version
23 Then Lamech said to his wives:
“Adah and Zillah, hear my voice;
Wives of Lamech, listen to my speech!
For I have killed a man for wounding me,
Even a young man for hurting me.
If Cain shall be avenged sevenfold,
Then Lamech seventy-sevenfold.”
Curiously, very few never-Trumpers are willing to concede that his character and morals have been developing positively. He delivered the end of Roe v. Wade, which Christians have been demanding since it became law. He has been more reflective and conscious of his mortality since the assassination attempt, seems less inclined to tolerate the Paula White circus, and is more open to recognizable Christians like Franklin Graham. Preeners project that Trump is beyond redemption; all those past, present, and future sins are too much even for the living God. Yet, somehow, our God did manage to convert Emperor Constantine, St. Augustine, C.S. Lewis, and millions of others who were thought too far gone.
Is it impertinent to note that the LC-MS has a very lax attitude to pastors husbanding more than one wife?
Luke 13:5-7, Amos 8:11.
Don’t hesitate to seek perfect wisdom from Scripture and to be absolutist in proclaiming the foundational truth of John 14:6.
Christian leadership was quick to invoke Romans 13 as the reason to close churches during COVID-19, even as abortion clinics, pot shops, and liquor stores were left open as “essential services.” We just zipped our lips and complied…
Rehwinkel was wrong about “family planning,” but we don’t need to take an absolutist position and condemn all his other work.
Is it unloving to bring the imprecatory Psalms and wisdom of Scripture to the hearing of our leaders rather than heap milquetoast blessings on them?
Where do we draw the line in submission and obedience to the government? The usual Romans 13 answer is that as long as the government is not asking us to do something evil, we should comply with their mandates. But what about the constant governmental intrusion into our personal lives and liberty? Where can one in good conscience draw the line? I’ve been asking this question for a long time and haven’t been able to draw any concrete conclusions from Scripture.
As Lutherans, we have distinctions, such as the uses of the Law, but several Lutheran theologians like to opine and are comfortable in abstractions, so they reject the concrete applications, such as the third use in the life of a Christian and the first use in the life of a nation, so they feel satisfied with their abstract virtues based on their erroneous conclusions and false teachings.