Six Answers to DeYoung on Christian Nationalism: VI (Part 2)
Kuyper alleges that the Old Testament examples “are of no force for us” because....
This response to DeYoung’s last question got broken up into two parts because it was the length of a Creational Story article.
Third, I must contend with certain elements of what DeYoung quotes Kuyper as saying. I am strongly in favor of ‘sphere sovereignty’ theology (as may have become apparent), but Kuyper is significantly wrong in several parts of his allegations here.
Kuyper alleges that the Old Testament examples “are of no force for us” because they lack the “infallible indication of what was or was not heretical” which was available in the Old Testament days. I have two answers. On the one hand, the Old Testament never gives the civil government the job of executing heretics or even repressing them, at least on grounds of heresy. Blasphemy, yes, and false prophecy, but heresy need not include either. On the other hand, Kuyper’s reason for obviating the perceived Old Testament law is balderdash. They had the infallible Scriptures; we have even more of said infallible Scriptures. We have a standard for heresy, one just as accessible to civil officials as anybody else- and we know from Luke 16:31 that if the Bible is insufficient, then no miracle will do the job better.
Kuyper alleges that the New Testament never calls for the use of the sword to repress heretics. I agree; I don’t believe in the repression of heretics (for heresy). But this reasoning fails to recognize that the New Testament is very, very quiet on the topic of what the civil magistrate should do, except by the implication of the continuing moral law. Why? Because the civil government was run by explicitly non-Christian persons, to the point that Christians in it had little agency to decide policy, in their lowly positions, and because the civil law was already available and needed little modification. The Ten Commandments needed no reiteration in the New Testament, and neither did the civil law. Kuyper’s argument would prove too much, by removing the entire OT civil law.
Kuyper alleges the rooting out of heretics is based on Romish tradition. Here he’s right.
Kuyper alleges that this practice usually backfires. Here I agree with him, but apparently on grounds he did not hold. Kuyper seems to believe that this is a result of the civil magistracy having insufficient standard. I hold that it is a result of government overstepping its proper bounds, so that sin leads to sin. From what I know of Kuyper, admittedly, he’d likely agree with me there (it’s basically an extension of sphere sovereignty theology), but my disagreement with his statement stands. We have a sufficient standard for the government, just as for the rest of life, and our consistent misuse of that standard is not an excuse to forget about using it.
On the whole, while DeYoung and Kuyper are in the right here to withhold the power of judging or repressing heresy from the state, DeYoung draws the wrong implication (if I understand him correctly) in making this grounds for separating the civil government from an explicitly and pervasively Biblical standard. Indeed, I agree with DeYoung’s policy position on Scriptural grounds. What basis other would I have in moral matters than that which is sufficient to “every good work” (2 Tim. 3:16-17)?
All that said, I should answer the original question. What model do I find in history for the order I want?
Well, in the first place, every human order is flawed and sinful; in that sense, no order man has yet accomplished suffices as our example. In a sense, therefore, I have no problem with being termed a ‘revolutionary,’ though ‘revanchist’ would be more accurate to the goal and ‘reformer’ to the means. I intend to take every thought captive (2 Cor. 10:5), including every idea of civil government, and that means seeking a holiness which will come to be only in the glorification of the world following the Second Coming.
Second to this, however, I can produce a variety of historical examples which instruct us. They are all immensely flawed. They are all, in actual implementation, riddled with sin and corruption. They all have structural defects vast and even ruinous. Some are admirable more for a segment than for the whole. But they exist. The three most comprehensively admirable examples are, from most to least admirable, the Israelite republic under Moses and Joshua, the American republics of the various states and of the early federal government (particularly prior to the conquest of the south in the 1860s1), and the English government (particularly under the Puritans). Other orders which are examples for us in part include the medieval system2 (particularly its emphasis on relationship), the Hawaiian kingdom post-Christianization (an explicitly Christian constitution), and the Dutch government in various eras- early days and Kuyper both.
God bless.
Footnotes
No, I’m not asserting the Confederates were pure and holy. I am asserting that secession was and is thoroughly legal, meaning that the Confederacy was a legitimate foreign state which the United States conquered, occupied, and incorporated by force.
Yes, I’m summing up a lot of different ‘systems’ in these two words, ridiculously squashing the lot.