John
Mark Reynolds
Politics
01.16.2008 |
A Response by Kevin
Craig
After reading about it at Stand
to Reason |
| I have defended Mike Huckabee on this blog,
though he is not my first choice for the nomination. He has been the victim of
unfair attacks from the regular Republican Party, who are aging, or have failed to
keep up with changing situations, and are out of touch with the concerns of
younger voters. |
I do not support Huckabee at all. He's a
"big-government liberal" compared to Ron Paul. Huckabee is not even on
my radar as an acceptable candidate.
As a Theocratic Christian Libertarian,
I do appreciate the fact that Huckabee is challenging the secularist mindset of
our day by publicly
integrating Christianity and politics.
I agree with JMR that "the regular Republican Party" -- the
leadership; the elders who undercut
the move to impeach Bill Clinton -- are dinosaurs. |
| In Michigan, however, Mr. Huckabee may
have expressed a confusion between general
and specific revelation that would disqualify him from serious
consideration for Christian voters in the republic. Perhaps the reports I have
read are in error or in the heat of a campaign he simply misspoke. |
For readers who are not familiar with the concept
of General
versus Special Revelation, see here.
Interesting that someone who was confused on this issue would be
"disqualified" from public office. Up till now, I have
been the only one defending such a stringent
litmus test. |
| What I read and heard, however, was serious. |
I don't follow the campaign too closely. A link
here would have been a propos. |
| If Mike Huckabee thinks the
Constitution should be changed to conform to Biblical law, then he is
in grave error. |
Everything -- including Constitutions -- should
conform to Biblical Law. The alternative -- everything violating Biblical
Law -- is chaos and tyranny.
The "grave error" might be the idea that everything should conform to
Huckabee's understanding of Biblical Law, again, a
prescription for chaos and tyranny .
I don't believe the Bible endorses big-government liberalism, but I'm willing to
grant the point that Huckabee "sincerely"
thinks it does.
|
| Mike Huckabee must get the distinction
between Biblical law and general revelation right to govern under the Constitution
of 1789. |
- Is there something in the Constitution of 1789 that prescribes orthodoxy on
the doctrine of "General vs. Special Revelation?"
- Article
II, Clause 5: No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the
United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be
eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to
that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and
been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States, and agree with
John Mark Reynolds' understanding of the doctrine of "Special vs. General
Revelation.".
|
| What is this distinction? Christians realized
that there were some truths that almost all people of good will understood. They
could be gained through human reason, itself a common grace of God to all
humankind. |
|
| One did not need to be a Christian to make
progress in math |
- Ultimately, this is false. A Buddhist who believes that "all is
One" ultimately believes that "2+2=One." A Hindu who believes
that all is "maya" (illusion) ultimately believes that math is
illusory. Christian cultures make more progress in math than non-Christian
cultures.
- Where is the Greek version of Newton? Where is the Muslim version of Kepler?
Where is the Hindu version of Boyle? Where is the Buddhist version of Mendel?
Such questions are all the more powerful when you pause to consider that
science studies truths that are universally true. How is it that so many other
cultures, some existing for thousands of years, failed to discover, or even
anticipate, Newton's first law of motion of Kepler's laws of planetary motion?
So it's not just that the Christian religion is associated with the birth of
modern science, it's also the fact that modern science was not birthed in
cultures which lacked the Christian religion. (Michael
Bumbulis)
|
| and Christians did not take long to discover that
they had much to learn from Jewish, Islamic, and even deist thinkers. That sounds
obvious, but it is hard to admit that what you think is true may be true, but not
have all the truths. |
No human being is perfectly consistent with his
ultimate presuppositions, or "worldview."
Someone who believes "all is illusion" may still look both ways before
crossing the street. America's Founding Fathers learned a few particulars from
non-Christian cultures, including the Greeks and Romans -- and many of these ideas
were lessons in what not to
do. The architects of a Christian culture or discipline can learn from individuals
of other religions, who make progress in science despite their
non-Christian, anti-science presuppositions, but we must not adopt the
non-Christian philosophy. |
| Christianity is true so far as it goes. |
What does this statement even mean? Where does
Christianity not go? What area of human life and thought does Christ not govern?
Where does the Bible abruptly stop and say, "Oops, I better not say anything
about that." Where is there a "neutral zone" of though or behavior
outside the jurisdiction of Christianity? |
| It may also contain truths that are not obvious
to other people of good will. This is not “secularism” in the modern sense,
but a recognition that there are areas of Christian thought where accepting divine
revelation is necessary to gain access to certain ideas. |
As I'm reading JMR's column, I don't understand
this paragraph. Maybe it will be explained momentarily.
John
3:12
If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you
believe if I tell you heavenly things?
|
| This revelation is the gift of Biblical faith,
itself a divine mercy from God. Christians cannot, and when they are sensible do
not, expect pagans and non-Christians to submit to Biblical law in those areas
where one must be a Christian to “buy” the arguments. |
God expects all human beings to submit to
Biblical Law.
Acts
17:30
Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men
everywhere to repent,
Non-Christian prostitutes, shoplifters, abortionists, embezzlers, and rapists
are expected to submit to Biblical Law even if their own personal philosophy or
worldview says the things they do are acceptable. If my son all of the sudden says
he no longer believes he's obligated to obey my rules regarding my tools in the
workshop, too bad. If my employee all of the sudden says he no longer believes
he's obligated to obey my rules regarding office supplies, too bad. God has given
me dominion and I'm obligated to
make my world a Theocracy, not a Democracy.
I'm not authorized to use violence,
but I expect people under my authority to "submit" to Biblical Law, and
I'm going to tell them that, even if they tell me to stop nagging them. This is a nag-ocracy.
Notice these verses from Young’s Literal Translation, with King David
reflecting on his influence over unbelievers:
2
Samuel 22:45
Sons of a stranger feign obedience to me,
At the hearing of the ear they hearken to me.
Psalm
18:44
At the hearing of the ear they hearken to me,
Sons of a stranger feign obedience to me,
Psalm
66:3
Say to God, `How fearful [are] Thy works,
By the abundance of Thy strength,
Thine enemies feign obedience to Thee.
Psalm
81:15
Those hating Jehovah feign obedience to Him,
But their time is –– to the age.
Deuteronomy
33:29
O thy happiness, O Israel! who is like thee?
A people saved by Jehovah,
The shield of thy help,
And He who [is] the sword of thine excellency:
And thine enemies are subdued for thee,
And thou on their high places dost tread.’
Proverbs
14:19
The evil have bowed down before the good,
And the wicked at the gates of the righteous.
This was in the Old Testament, before the Advent of the Messiah, who is the
"Savior" of the
unsaved.
1
Timothy 4:10
For to this end we both labor and suffer reproach, because we trust in the
living God, who is the Savior of all men, especially of those who
believe. [that is, even of those who do not believe]
Social order and prosperity is the product of a Christian social consensus,
and the material and cultural fruit of this consensus can be even enjoyed by those
whose religion says it's all illusion.
|
| Christians discovered through history that
freedom of conscience was one of God’s great gifts to mankind. |
No human being is given a gift from God of being
a "conscientious atheist." No human being has the freedom in God's eyes
to be a non-Christian (Romans
14:11; Philippians
2:10).
On the other hand, no Christian has the right to initiate
force against non-Christians.
No human being has the right to be wrong. No human being has the right to initiate
force [different link] against those who are wrong.
Christianity is socially and politically libertarian, but mentally,
spiritually, and philosophically totalitarian. You can be absolutely confident
that your neighbor is "dead wrong" in what he believes, but you do not
have the right to kill him.
|
| It was a hard won lesson, one of the great gifts
of Christendom to the West. It is also a lesson that was achieved in dialog with
secularists or near secularists who were allowed to live relatively unmolested
academic lives. This is a tolerance that it is easy to chuckle at today, but
letting Hume live fat and happy was a major achievement for a culture that thought
some of his views quite wicked. |
I guess this paragraph is "true," but
what does it have to do with Huckabee? Huckabee would deny this paragraph? What
does this have to do with the idea attributed to Huckabee,
that "the Constitution should be
changed to conform to Biblical law? Is JMR
saying that the Constitution should be changed to conform to Hindu law? Atheistic
communist law? Is JMR criticizing America's Founding Fathers for basing the
American Legal System on the Ten
Commandments of the Christian
Bible? |
| Most of the world still would not give such a man
the right to live, let alone be an honored member of a culture. Christians should
celebrate this tolerance and not fall back fearfully on winning arguments through
imposing laws on people that cannot accept them. |
Is Huckabee really this anti-libertarian? |
| Even today people on the right and left struggle
to sustain the principle that the right to dissent is nearly absolute. |
What is mean by the phrase, "the right to
dissent?" In what sense is it not "absolute?" |
| Of course the right to dissent from law (in
behavior) is not absolute. |
Of
course. Not in a Christian nation, anyway. |
| It is not absolute exactly where the Framers said
it was. Christians cannot allow the right to life, liberty, and private
property to be taken away from men and women, because these are rights that
reasonable people should be able to grasp without being Christian. |
"Rights"
rhetoric is always quicksand. People today speak of a "right to a living
wage," and other nonsense. No
human being has a "right" to life. Every human being has a duty
not to take another's
life. |
| Traditional marriage and procreation is of
interest to the state. |
Everything in heaven and on earth is of
"interest" to the modern state. It is totalitarian in its lusts. |
| Most people in most places at most times have
believed this was a “self-evident” truth just as the right to life is
self-evident. |
In other words, the state has a right to define
marriage and punish adultery. This was certainly true back when America was a more
Christian nation. Is JMR suggesting that adulterers be punished by the State? Does
Huckabee deny this? |
| Every culture develops thoughtful minorities who
may dissent from these truths, but they must submit to the rule of law. |
The rule
of Whose law? |
| It is important, however, that freedom of
conscience, soul liberty, be maintained as far as possible. Laws do as
little as possible to force people to do what they believe to be wrong or
prevent them from doing what they believe to be right. |
Is the goal only to be minimalist ("as
little as possible") or is the goal to be Biblical? Who has the right
to define the reach of State coercion? Shouldn't this reach be defined by Biblical
Law? Isn't that what Huckabee is saying (our disagreements with his interpretation
of that Law notwithstanding)? |
| Religion contains knowledge of this sort,
philosophical arguments that it can add to the public square. When these arguments
prevail religious voters must do so with a consensus that the widest
possible group of people can accept. Fifty-one percent law is usually bad
law. |
Have we moved from minimalism to utilitarianism
("greatest good for greatest number")? |
| Any idea that requires a belief in Christian
doctrine or specific Christian revelation cannot be imposed or should not imposed
by force on non-believers. |
Charles Manson or some Satanist believes he must
kill a famous actress. Should the State impose on Mr. Manson the Christian idea
that it's immoral to murder, even if that idea is contrary to Mr. Manson's
deepest conscientious beliefs, beliefs which vitally animate and comprehensively
define his entire life's purpose and the meaning of his existence? |
| Mike Huckabee appears to have said that
the Constitution should match the Word of God. If by the Word of God, Huckabee
means the Bible (it is possible he did not), then he is wrong to say the
Constitution should conform to it. |
The Constitution should contradict the
Word of God?
There's a possibility in JMR's mind that Huckabee believes something other
than the Bible is "the Word of God??"
The Constitution should NOT conform to the Bible?
|
| A Constitution may agree with Sacred Scripture,
but it should not impose that specific revelation on the commonwealth. |
What is a Constitution and a legal system if not
the imposition of ideas or morality? A Constitution cannot impose
"Thou shalt not kill" on the commonwealth? Not a single person who
signed the Constitution of 1787 would agree with that proposition. |
| This takes matters of personal faith and
the Church into the public square where they do not belong. These issues may be
knowledge of a sort, the doctrine of the trinity is true, but it is not knowledge
based on argument to which non-Christians have access. |
Like virtually all the state
constitutions, the Delaware
constitution of 1776 established a Christian State by requiring:
Art. 22. Every person who shall be chosen a member of either house, or
appointed to any office or place of trust . . . shall . . . make and subscribe
the following declaration, to wit: "I ________, do profess faith in God the
Father, and in Jesus Christ His only Son, and in the Holy Ghost, one God,
Blessed for evermore; and I do acknowledge the holy scripture of the Old and New
Testaments to be given by divine inspiration."[1]
Why is this an unChristian thing to do? |
| Huckabee should press for the Constitution to
conform to the law of Nature and of Nature’s God, but he should not press for
the Constitution to enshrine any law that requires acceptance of any religious
claim more specific than that. |
The "[L]aw[s] of Nature and of Nature’s
God" was just an eloquent
shorthand for the Bible.
Should the Constitution enshrine a law that imposes behaviors on people
(atheists) who do not believe in the "[L]aw[s] of Nature and of Nature’s
God?" Which god? Which laws?
|
| I hope and assume that I have misunderstood
Huckabee’s position or he has disagrees with one of the most glorious
accomplishments of American Baptist tradition. |
|
| It was, more than any other group, American
Baptists who pressed in civil matters for maximum soul liberty. It would be sad
for a great Southern Baptist leader to fail to understand this issue. |
Three cheers for Baptists.
Boo for John
Mark Reynolds. |
January 16, 2008
|
This post at Stand
to Reason (left-hand column) was actually posted before the one above.
Our response is below. |
|
Pastors and presidents have very different jobs and rationales for what they do
and candidates should respect that distinction. |
Where does the Bible say that
Presidents and Pastors have "very different jobs?" The word
"Pastor" is Biblically and etymologically a "Shepherd." In the
Bible, it is the President (the "king") who is to
"shepherd" the people:
2
Samuel 5:2
Also, in time past, when Saul was king over us, you were the one who led Israel
out and brought them in; and the LORD said to you, ‘You shall shepherd My
people Israel, and be ruler over Israel.’”
See also 2
Samuel 7:7; 1
Kings 22:17; 1
Chronicles 11:2; 1
Chronicles 17:6; Ezekiel
34; Ezekiel
37:24-28, etc., etc. English
synonyms explained in alphabetical order. With copious illus. and examples drawn
from the best writers (1902) |
| Our rights are endowed by our Creator and that's
why the government needs to respect them. |
Our government needs to respect our
rights because they come from God? This means our government is
essentially religious, because its most fundamental duty is toward God, and
this is the essence of "religion" (James
1:27; religion ::
1828 Noah Webster's Dictionary of the English Language). |
| But our government is a secular one. The
rationale for government actions should be appealed to on grounds that are
accessible and persuasive to everyone regardless of their religious convictions,
not on Biblical grounds. |
- This is utterly false, and contradicts what was just said above. Our
government has a duty to be religious,
not "secular." When the Mormons
sought to overturn laws against polygamy, the U.S. Supreme Court denied their
request on the grounds that polygamy is not tolerated in Christian nations.
If a secular nation outlawed polygamy, it would be purely arbitrary. In one of
the most famous addresses in all of American history, George Washington urged
that we reject this
- supposition, that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may
be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar
structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national
morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.
|
| That's why I think Gov. Huckabee's comments
were very unwise now that he's a presidential candidate. |
So the truth can be spoken by
"ecclesiastical" pastors, but not by "political" pastors? Who
made this rule? |
"I have opponents in this race who do not want to change the
Constitution," Huckabee told a Michigan audience on Monday. "But I
believe it's a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change
the word of the living God. And that's what we need to do -- to amend the
Constitution so it's in God's standards rather than try to change God's
standards so it lines up with some contemporary view."
|
|
| The Constitution should never be changed to
conform to God's standards - at least that's not the reason we should change
it. What's right and good is certain God's standard, and the rationale for
Constitutional amendments should be made because it's right and good, not because
it's God's standard. We should amend the Constitution for appropriate and
good reasons for societal welfare. |
We should not do something because
God commands it, but only because we feel like it? Atheistic Autonomy is to be
preferred over Christian Theonomy?
What standard is there besides God's standard for determining
right and good? Is "right and good" just out there somewhere? Was it
there before God was there?
What behavior will guarantee our "societal
welfare" if not God-commanded behavior? Can "God
Bless America" for any other reason than that we obey His Commandments?
|
| And very good and persuasive secular reasons
can be given for traditional marriage and against same-sex marriage. |
- Check their link, and ask the author, what are the secular
reasons for not legalizing incest? Was there a single signer of the
Constitution who would agree with this proposition:
- No behavior should be criminalized only because the Bible says so. Behavior
should be made a crime only if the Mormon, the Aztec, the French
Revolutionary, and the Satanist agree that it should be outlawed.
- Not a single Founding Father would agree that only atheistic or non-Biblical
reasons can be advanced by lawmakers. The
Bible is the basis for American Law.
|
| Further, the basis of our Constitution, and I
believe one of the wise things about it, is that the Federal government is limited
to certain functions. It isn't meant to do everything smaller governments
and individual citizens are meant to do. Thus, the Constitution could never
and should never encompass God's standards because His standards are a lot more
encompassing and demanding than our government can and should demand. |
This is a logical fallacy. Every one
of the federal government's enumerated powers should
be carried out in accord with Scripture.
Just because the federal government shouldn't do everything God wants
done in the world doesn't mean it shouldn't do anything God wants done, and
precisely because the God of the Bible commands it.
|
| Gov. Huckabee has seemed to mix these categories
before when he talked about the role the government has to fill with social
programs because we as individuals and Christians have failed to do what God has
asked us to. Even if we fail to live
up to God's expectations, the government should not step in to do what the Church
and individual citizens should be doing. |
Huckabee is wrong to say the federal
government should enact "social programs." No branch of government --
state, local, or federal -- should enact "social programs." It is
immoral for Smith to steal from Jones to give aid to
the impoverished Wilson. |
| There's a role for government and there's a role
for the church, and they function best and provide the greatest freedom and good
when the roles don't cross over. |
"There is a role." Where?
Where is this "role" defined? Does the Constitution say
that charity is for "the church" and not the role of "the
state?" No, STR
is applying a BIBLICAL principle to the State, just like
Huckabee. I thought this was verboten? |
| As a pastoral exhortation, I think Pastor
Huckabee's comments were appropriate. But as a presidential candidate, Gov.
Huckabee doesn't seem to recognize the distinct roles pastors and presidents play
and that makes me very uncomfortable. |
"Very uncomfortable." Boo-hoo.
The author would have been very uncomfortable on the
day the Constitution was completed for this Christian nation.
I'm going to keep my eye peeled for a statement that says George Washington was
not only "the father of his country," but also "the shepherd."
"Clinton has portrayed herself as the best prepared candidate to shepherd
the U.S. economy" [source]
No, I'm thinking of something 200 years old, speaking more Biblically.
In a series of steps culminating in the Constitutional Convention of 1789,
Washington risked his reputation and honor to shepherd
the leaders of our nation toward that elusive unity he believed so critical to
our survival. And then, without campaigning and out of duty, Washington
consented to his election, as President. [source]
No, I'd still like to find something more contemporaneous, from an author who
was consciously thinking about the verses cited above.
Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865), sixteenth president of the United States, has
become a mythic figure in America's civil religion. Born into relative poverty
on the midwestern frontier, he rose from humble origins through self-discipline,
honesty, common sense, a considerable measure of ambition, and a ready wit to shepherd
the nation through the black days of the Civil War. After his death, Americans
found it irresistible to see his achievement in a religious light. It was soon
noted, for example, that Lincoln -- the "Savior" of the Union -- was
shot on Good Friday (April 14, 1865), that his efforts to liberate the bondslave
and bind up the wounds of war were cut short by "martyrdom," and that
his very name -- Abraham -- spoke of the father of his people. Although Lincoln
himself originally saw the Civil War as a political struggle to preserve the
Union, he came to regard it as a crusade for truth and right. He spoke of the
United States as "the last, best hope of the earth," of its citizens
as "the almost chosen people," and of the War as a test to see if a
nation "conceived in liberty . . . can long endure." [source]
Eu, yuck.
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