There Is More Than One Iceberg For The Church To Avoid Sailing In The North Atlantic

The blogpost being reviewed here has two parts. The first part consists of the article seen where R. Scott Clark (click here for a brief bio) discusses W. Robert Godfrey's assessment of theonomy. The second part consists of R. Scott Clark's assessment of a wider variety of subjects some of which are related and some of which are not. We will deal mostly with the first part here (click here for the blogpost). 

Before discussing the blogpost, however, we should note that one of the biggest struggles religiously conservative Christianity has is in deciphering how to share society with others. It is such a big struggle that many in such Christians have yet to regard how to share society with others as even an issue, let alone a struggle. Many of us are in denial. And we handle that denial by either exercising some degree of withdrawing from the world or by demonstrating hubris. And sometimes, it is difficult to tell the difference between the two.

So what we see is a continuum between the two approaches by the conservative Church. At one end of the continuum, we have some in the Church who are totally withdrawn from the world to wanting to exercise varying degrees of control over society. But regardless of where many conservative Christians see themselves on this continuum, it reduces the Church's position in society to having only 1 of 2 attitudes toward unbelievers in society. Either Christians don't care if they are put in a subservient relationship to unbelievers by virtue of their apathy toward society, or they seek some place of supremacy and thus some degree of control over unbelievers in society. Theonomy, which is the subject of discussion in the blogpost being reviewed, lies at one of the ends of the continuum. It represents a total domination of society by Christians who hold to a certain conjunction of interpretations of the Bible that consist of a specific study of the end times and a particular approach to interpreting Old Testament laws.

The article part of the reviewed blogpost gives a brief but sound theological, and even psychological view of theonomy. Theonomy desires, after all, to make the laws of Moses the laws of the land. Those desires have utopian overtones that imply that if we followed the laws of Moses, we would have the happiest and most prosperous society possible. After all, according to Theonomists, the laws of Moses reflect God's design for how humans should live together. And tolerating anything less than God's laws allows for sin and the destruction it brings. This makes sinners the enemy of the state and a threat to society.

Thus when Godfrey describes why religiously conservative Christians are drawn to Theonomy, he is more than correct in saying the following:

is its simplicity and apparently biblical character. The great complexities and frustrations of the secular, modern world lead many to look for easy solutions. But in a fallen world solutions to great political problems are not always easy. The approach of theorem is a novel one in the Reformed community and uses the Scripture in a way that is alien to Reformed Christianity.

And what we should notice is that what religiously conservative Christians from both ends of the continuum share is simplicity. Those Christians who withdraw from the world eliminate the complications that come with being involved with the world by separating themselves as much as possible from the world. On the other hand, Theonomists by insisting on enforcing the laws of Moses as eventually becoming the law of the land to have shown their preference for simplicity by insisting on a set of laws that don't need to be discussed to be applied and that could only be agreed to by a homogenous population. And thus it doesn't account for having to negotiate laws for a diverse population where competing values must be negotiated rather than overridden.

Though the article part of the blogpost provides helpful instruction on how to see Theonomy, the audio part of the blogpost has some glaring weaknesses. However, both the article and the audio parts share a conservative weakness when dealing with the modern world. That conservative weakness is the overwhelming tendency to see today's world solely through the eyes of selected sources from the past. Not only does such an approach show its own desire to embrace an overly simplistic approach to understanding today's world, it becomes, according to Martin Luther King, Jr., unjust. For when traditionalists believe that their selected heroes from the past have everything to teach those of us who live in the now and have nothing to learn from us, they practice the same sins as the today's narcissists who believe the converse of what traditionalists hold to.

When speaking against the Vietnam War, King made that point against the West's approach to foreign policy:

The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just.

Thus, the only just way for Christians to live in today's is to share society with unbelievers as equals. And part of sharing society with unbelievers as equals is to collaborate with them in the legislation we promote, a legislation that enables all in society to share society as equals.