Doug Wilson's broadside against David French and ... whatever it is he thinks French believes
“Since Wilson is enjoining the debate on the side of Sohrab Ahmari, does he agree that we need to dispense with the liberal order itself by grasping the reins of power and coercing our way to a society ordered to the ‘highest good’?” - National Review
- 14 views
Be that as it may, perhaps French, and those of us in his camp, believes that the American experiment is the greatest political arrangement yet devised for the triumph and flourishing of freedom and virtue, precisely because free virtue is real virtue, organic moral fiber, not outward conformity produced by fiat.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
I read Wilson’s article and could not stop shaking my head at pretty much all of it but this in particular:
Conservative Christianity, the kind that believes the Bible, is the kind of faith system that can sustain the most robust forms of religious liberty possible. No other worldview comes close. So to say that you want all the different faith systems, with which America teems, to respect and honor religious liberty is to say that, on this point at least, you want them to defer to the Christian pattern. Being a Christian, I don’t mind making that a requirement. What I do mind is the pretense that we are not doing so.
This in my view is sheer nonsense. The history of Christianity does not demonstrate that it is a religion that is about religious liberty. Quite the opposite in fact. Christianity does not have a good track record for even allowing religious liberty within Christianity itself as is evidenced by Christians burning their own at the stake during the Middle Ages and Reformation. And liberty outside Christianity? That is laughable with the Crusades being a notable example.
There are many that still think that this country is founded on Christianity rather than classical liberalism. Thankfully it is not or we might look more like the way it was before the Constitution when religious persecution was common here. Roger Williams did not go to Rhode Island for a vacation. Religious liberty exists in the US precisely because Christianity does not get the favored status that Wilson wants for it.
From a worldview standpoint, Wilson has a valid point or two. There’s a sense in which all other worldviews are borrowing from the Christian worldview wherever they’re correct.
The problem is that you don’t have to get to Christian truth by a Christian route, and in a free society it’s counterproductive to try to get everyone to do that. (By government use of power)
Our political philosophy as a nation doesn’t have to be fully coherent and eternally sustainable. It only has to hold together well enough to keep it reasonably just and free as long as possible, preferably until the Day of the Lord.
He’s not all wrong, he’s just got French mostly wrong and is way too idealistic about what can and should be done through human government in this age.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
There is no “Frenchism” to receive a kiss of death. It’s nothing more than than the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
Though there are many attacks on them in many forms, that’s been going on for a long time. What’s new is that now we have people on the right attacking them. Still, even with enemies on both the right and the left, they aren’t going away just yet.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
The history of Christianity does not demonstrate that it is a religion that is about religious liberty. Quite the opposite in fact.
Whatever one might believe about the Wilson-French-whoever discussion, this is manifestly false. One of the bedrock NT principles of Christianity is that Christianity is not a coerced religion and others who disagree have the freedom to disagree. It is true that some claiming the name have inconsistently lived out that value, but it is not Christianity that is wanting, but consistent practice of NT theology. This is exactly why the biblical notion of the separation of church and state matters.
Although, if SI is any indication, religious liberty is indeed hard to come by among Christians. It seems liberty is only allowed if you confine your liberty to the prevailing norm. Woe to the one who dares depart. He is in for a good dose of sarcastic treatment, along with name calling, and ad hominem (or worse) types of arguments. It seems to easy to simply let it go and let someone believe what they want. No, we must pile on incessantly until it is clear that liberty is a relative value, not an absolute one.
[Larry]The history of Christianity does not demonstrate that it is a religion that is about religious liberty. Quite the opposite in fact.
Whatever one might believe about the Wilson-French-whoever discussion, this is manifestly false. One of the bedrock NT principles of Christianity is that Christianity is not a coerced religion and others who disagree have the freedom to disagree. It is true that some claiming the name have inconsistently lived out that value, but it is not Christianity that is wanting, but consistent practice of NT theology. This is exactly why the biblical notion of the separation of church and state matters.
No, I don’t think it is false. I was not referring to the NT teaching of Christianity; I explicitly said the history of Christianity. And when you read the history of Christianity, you read a sordid tale of violence that started very shortly after Jesus died and involved Christians vs Christians and Christians initiating violence against non-Christians from a position of power. Can you come up with some exceptions, especially from the past few centuries? Sure you can, but the overall history of Christianity in regards to religious freedom is horrific.
My point is that this current trend on the radical right to try to move us toward a version of a Christian theocracy (though they would not admit it) is dangerous, not just for non-Christians but for Christians as well.
Religious liberty—indeed any kind of liberty—has never meant “the freedom to never be ridiculed for what you publicly present as truth.” Not that I’m defending anyone’s sarcasm, necessarily, but a view expressed is a view open to criticism… and liberty has to do with freedom from coercion.
As for the history of Christianity, surely we all understand (don’t we?) that there’s always been a difference between Christianity and “things Christians do.” Or to put it another way, a difference between Christianity and “Christianity.” There’s obedient Christianity and disobedient Christianity.
The Christian faith is inherently pro-religious liberty at it’s core. How so? Salvation is by faith… and faith never has been forced. People have been forced to confess things and deny things, etc., but these are always distinct from true belief (though they usually go together, they are always different things).
So wherever Christianity has functioned in a matter true to itself, it has fostered both religious liberty and freedom of conscience.
As for the classical liberalism the U.S. was built on, it draws heavily on ideas that really are pieces of Christian views of creation, human nature, the nature and purpose of government, etc. Some of the classical liberals were classical liberals because they were Christians. Others will classical liberals because they saw the same principles in “nature and nature’s God”… so they were working from what they saw as inferences from the nature of what they believed to be a created world (this is all long before Darwin and naturalism).
It’s really not possible to separate Christianity and Deism point by point… they are much intertwined in lots of ways.
But where Bill of Rights/Classical Liberalists (now being called Frenchism here and there… I don’t know if this red herring is actually catching on) differ from what these post-constitutional nationalists are saying is that they understand the nation’s founding principles included…
(a) belief in the role of non-governmental cultural influences (aka “civil society”) and institutions and
(b) belief that government should not impose a religion or use unnecessarily religious arguments as a basis for what it does.
Jefferson et al. weren’t properly “secularists,” but some of them were pretty close. It was supposed to be reason and virtue that drove things. Of course, with the advent of modernism and post modernism we don’t have “truth” anymore, so we don’t really have reason and virtue either. And that’s where the Wilson has some valid points about the fix we’re in.
The weird thing about the debate is that French doesn’t disagree about the fix we’re in. He just doesn’t believe the solution is to chuck our founding concept of liberty.
(Edit to add: in reference to (a) and (b) above… also (c) that keeping government in its proper place is the only way item (a) can thrive and do its job.)
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
That Doug Wilson is increasingly trending an direction where theonomy is a good thing, instead of a heresy to be condemned, and that advocates an approach to civil government that seems to be more of a functioning theocracy than anything else, and you understand why Wilson is writing in defense of Ahmari. Politics does, indeed, make for strange bedfellows.
I continue to be amazed at how many good men like Phil Johnson, John Piper, Tom Ascol and more have absolutely no problems linking to and endorsing Wilson’s blog and writings. Wilson has more baggage than O’Hare International Airport (Sitler, Wright, Plagariarism, “Southern Slavery as It Was”, now titled Black and Tan) and people hand-wave it away because he ‘writes well’. There is more than enough garbage in his way/wake to practice secondary separation against him.
"Our task today is to tell people — who no longer know what sin is...no longer see themselves as sinners, and no longer have room for these categories — that Christ died for sins of which they do not think they’re guilty." - David Wells
Wilson has more baggage than O’Hare International Airport and people hand-wave it away because he ‘writes well’. There is more than enough garbage in his way/wake to practice secondary separation against him.
I’m not sure about the separation because I haven’t followed him that closely, but I’ve read enough to think the O’Hare reference is about right.
I was thinking above that maybe his eschatology is a factor… does he link theonomy with a post-mil style “we’re going to bring in the Kingdom” strategy?
I’m not sure people are out of line quoting him and such, because sometimes he says excellent things excellently… but maybe more disclaimers with the quotes are in order. Anyway, I’d rather focus on the ideas themselves and he often raises pretty important questions, if we aren’t crazy about his answers.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
I was thinking above that maybe his eschatology is a factor… does he link theonomy with a post-mil style “we’re going to bring in the Kingdom” strategy?
I think he used to be post-mill (not sure) but now he is clearly pitting the “secular criminal justice system” against “the church’s obligation to pursue justice”. That’s why I was so angry when Wilson defended the mistreatment of Rachael Denhollander (and her pursuit of justice in multiple spheres) in the original Founders Ministry trailer two or three months ago at SI.
Wilson is the pastor of Christ Church in Moscow, ID. The three major editors/players in the creation of the original trailer (the firm that created it is called CrossPolitic) are all either on staff at or serving as elders in Wilson’s church. All three men specifically stated that they deliberately intended to conflate the good work done by Denhollander and others with the perils of Critical Race Theory / Intersectionality. Wilson wrote a whole article defending CrossPolitic’s actions at Blog and Mablog; James White said that he spoke with one of the trailer editors and they said it was intentional as well. The whole mess is being injected into the SBC via Founders Ministries. All of this is publicly available knowledge.
And to our shame, a bunch of men who should have known better not only agreed with this, but defended it.
"Our task today is to tell people — who no longer know what sin is...no longer see themselves as sinners, and no longer have room for these categories — that Christ died for sins of which they do not think they’re guilty." - David Wells
Aaron, I suppose my biggest small quibble with you on this is how you seem to elevate classical liberalism to the level of it being the “right way” or Christian way to do government. That seems like a bit of a stretch for a few reasons.
First, classical liberalism was radical and new when it made its appearance only a few centuries ago. You get some hints maybe in Aristotle and ancient Rome but not much elsewhere in history. So why did it take Christianity so long to come up with it? It seems that if it was Christianity-inspired, we would have seen it in history before the US came about.
Second, a good chunk of the thinking of classical liberalism was just flat out anti-God (thinking primarily Hume here but certainly he was one of the most critical early thinkers).
Don’t get me wrong. CL is brilliant thinking and I am a fan. But I don’t see it as you seem to; I see it as a great approach to government but not anything more than that and certainly not God-sanctioned.
I was not referring to the NT teaching of Christianity; I explicitly said the history of Christianity.
I think this is an error. The “history of christianity” as you reference it is not Christianity at all. The NT is the basis for Christianity, not the actions of people who, with good or ill intent, misused it. But even at that, there is a long history of religious freedom in Christianity and it has spawned of religious freedom in a way that it is unlikely any others have.
My point is that this current trend on the radical right to try to move us toward a version of a Christian theocracy (though they would not admit it) is dangerous, not just for non-Christians but for Christians as well.
If this is a trend, it is certainly on the radical right, meaning so far right as not to have much of a voice to be heard. I am not aware of this trend in any significant way but then I tend not to read far right sources so that may be why.
No conversation here is complete without a reference to music, the equation of food and alcohol, or a bashing of Doug Wilson. Glad to know we can put this one to bed now.
[Larry]I was not referring to the NT teaching of Christianity; I explicitly said the history of Christianity.
I think this is an error. The “history of christianity” as you reference it is not Christianity at all. The NT is the basis for Christianity, not the actions of people who, with good or ill intent, misused it. But even at that, there is a long history of religious freedom in Christianity and it has spawned of religious freedom in a way that it is unlikely any others have.
Larry, I am pretty well versed in church history but I am always up for learning more. I am not aware of any really significant examples of religious freedom in societies dominated by Christianity until the church lost most of its control of government a few centuries ago. Do you?
I am using the term “Christianity” liberally here to include Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and Protestantism. I will grant that the Reformation probably paved the way for secular democracies which in turn led to a lot of religious freedom. The Reformers themselves hardly seemed interested in religious freedom though.
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