Irreconcilable Differences

Continuing the review of Russian Orthodoxy Resurgent.   In this chapter the Gerrards give a detailed, yet succinct enough summary of Russian Church history, particularly in its opposition to “The West.”  Other scholarly reviewers criticized the Gerrards for adopting a “Huntingdonian” view of East-West differences.  Perhaps Huntingdon’s thesis is overdrawn, but I don’t see how anyone who reads any random issue of The Wall Street Journal or watches Fox News can avoid the conclusion that the West is opposed to Russia.  The Gerrards are simply stating the obvious.

That’s not to say the Gerrards do a good job on summarizing Russian ecclesial and political history in this chapter.  They do not.   In fact, many of their summaries and conclusions are painful.  Like the rest of the book when it errs, they get the general idea correct, but botch the details.  A few examples:

• They say that Orthodoxy opposes papal infallibility because Orthodoxy traces their lineage through St Andrew “the first called apostle,” and not through Peter.   Now, any decent church history textbook can explain the difference between papal primacy and papal infallibility.  Orthodox affirm the former (at least until 1054) as a way of honoring the Roman bishop because of his good leadership and the number of martyrs at Rome.   Affirming the former, however, is not the same thing as justifying the latter (a basic logical distinction that Roman Catholics fail to see).   As to the argument of “Andrew the First-Called,” I suppose some out of the way Russian clerics hold that view, but I’ve never seen a serious Orthodox scholar advance such a view.
• The Gerrards downplay the role of the Filioque in order to bolster their own (unique) thesis that it was the issue of Apostolic Succession, and not the Filioque, that determines the difference between Orthodoxy and Rome.  The Gerrards are to be commended, however, for noting the connections between papal supremacy and the desire to convert Russia by the sword.

Interestingly, Alexey II, the star of the book so far, is not prominent in this chapter.  They do mention the fact Aleksy used his political skill to thwart many of John Paul II’s aims against Russia.   Surprisingly for academics, the Gerrards do not criticize the Russian Church for thwarting the goals of Protestants to proselytize Russia.  This is a hard point for Westerners to understand.  Even the most backwoods conservative right-wing American, who loves Jesus and hates secularism, is a pure secularist when it comes to proselytizing Russia.  And by pure secularist, I mean someone who has thoroughly absorbed the values of the Enlightenment.     Americans simply cannot understand why Russia opposes “Christian” missionaries to her country.

Russians, and Orthodox, affirm that their view is “the truth.”  While maybe a mean statement, most conservative religious communities do the same thing as well.   If you say you are the truth, you are likewise making a value-judgment against those who are not the truth.   This is not bigotry.  This is logic.  Everyone does it. This is a rejection of the Enlightenment view that says to some religious communities, “No, you are not welcome here.”

From the perspective of Russia’s 1,000 year history and memory, precisely what do they owe the Protestants, especially the more chaotic baptist elements who themselves are splinters from splinter groups?  Also, and this usually isn’t mentioned in low-church circles, many of these proselytizers are “NGOs” whose tracts may contain bible verses on one side, but democratic propaganda on the other side.

Even Death Itself Will Work Backwards

I watched Chronicles of Narnia tonight. Aslan made a comment to Lucy after Aslan’s “sacrificial death.” In the conversation he remarks “and death itself will work backwards.” I then realized how utterly Irenaean that line was. According to St Irenaeus and Ephesians 1:10, Christ’s death recapitulated all of reality, both in heaven and on earth. This includes death and time. Christ’s death defeated death and changed the very structure of time (if we are to take Ephesians 1:10 seriously as the summing up and recapitulation of “all” things).

Theoden’s Charge

This is easily the greatest moment in all of human literature. Like anything else Tolkien wrote, every word, every syllable is perfect. The Christian symbolism is too rich it is actually painfully beautiful to read. This is the arche of human perfection. People today are blessed to live at this hour so they can read such pure awesomeness.

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then suddenly merry felt it at last, beyond doubt: a change.  Wind was in his face! Light was glimmering.  Far, far away, in the South the clouds could be dimly seen as remote grey shapes, rolling up, drifting: morning lay beyond them.

But at that same moment there was a flash, as if lightning had sprung from the earth beneath the City.  For a searing second it stood dazzling far off in black and white, its topmost tower like a glittering needle; and then as the darkness closed there came rolling over the fields a great boom.

At that sound the bent shape of the king sprang suddenly erect.  Tall and proud he seemed again; and rising in his stirrups he cried in a loud foice, more clear than any there had ever heard a mortal man achieve before,

Arise,arise, Riders of Theoden!
Fell deeds awake: fire and slaughter!
spear shall be shaken, shield be splintered,
a sword-day, a red day, ere the sun rises!
Ride now, ride now! Ride to Gondor!

With that he seized a great horn from Guthlaf his banner-bearer and he blew such a blast upon it that it burst asunder.  And straightway all horns in the host were lifted up in music, and th blowing of the horns of Rohan in that hour was like a storm upon the plain and a thunder in the mountains.

Ride now, ride now! Ride to Gondor!

Suddenly the king cried to Snowmane and the horse sprang away.  Behind him his banner blew in the wind, white horse upon a field of green, but he outpaced it.  After him thundered the knights of his house, but he was ever before them.  Eomer roder there, the white horsetail on his helm floating in his speed, and the front of the first eored roared like a breaker foaming to the shore, but Theoden could not be outpaced.  Fey he seemed, or the battle-fury of his fathers ran like new fire in his veins, and he was borne up on Snowmane like a god of old, even as Orome the Great in the bttle of the Valar when the world was young.  His golden shield was uncovered, and lo! it shone like an image of the Sun, and the grass flamed into green abou the white feet of his steed.  For morning came, morning and a wind from the sea; and darkness was removed, and the hosts of NATO wailed, and terror took them, and they fled, and died, and the hoofs of wrath rode over them.  And then all the host of Rohan burst into song, and the sang as they slew, for the joy of battle was on them, and the sound of their singing that was fair and terrible came even to the City.

N. T. Wright on Monarchy

http://www.ntwrightpage.com/Wright_God_Caesar.pdf

This is from his excellent essay on Paul and Caesar.   Wright is speaking in context of the British monarchy, something I’m not overly thrilled with, but his larger points and goals are correct.

Monarchy, like all sacraments, needs to be held within a strong theology of the ascended Jesus, Lord and King of the whole world, the one who has all authority.

Today’s cheap-and-chattering republicanism owes nothing to the Christian critique of human power, and everything to the sneer of the cynic, noting the price of everything but ignoring its value. Monarchy at its best is a symbolic reminder that the power-games of this world do not stand alone, but in a curious and many-sided relation to a transfiguring love and power which exists in a different dimension.

Monarchy is meant to be an angled mirror in which we see round the dark corner to that other dimension of reality, and realise the provisionality of all earthly power. Woe betide a monarchy that merely mirrors a society back to itself, or that becomes an idol instead of a mirror.

Monarchy is a reminder that the justice and mercy which rulers must practice are not their possession, but come from elsewhere; they are part of theGod-given created order.

It is hard to deny, on Christian premises, that it is vital for the health of a nation and society to have such symbols, and the accompanying rituals with, yes, all their sacramental overtones.

Arguments for disestablishment regularly make points which cancel one another out. Establishment, say some, means a powerful church; the gospel is about weakness, not power; therefore Establishment must go. Establishment, say others, means the church is ruled by the state; the gospel is about the powerful rule of Jesus Christ; therefore we should abandon Establishment. You can’t have it both ways. Either we’re dangerously powerful or we’re dangerously weak. The truth, as usual, is more complex.

Theonomy’s Academic Indifference to Western Civilization

Last post on theonomy (for a while).   The title of this post seems odd, given that Christian Reconstructionists seek to “reconstruct” America, and I believe that is sincerely their goal.   (Despite the confusion of terms, I am using theonomy and Christian Reconstruction as synonymous.  I know they really aren’t, but I don’t feel like getting into semantics).

As Serge Trifkovic noted, Western Civilization didn’t come from the West.  It came from Christianity.   And Christianity came from the East.  (I had a theonomist challenge me on this point; I then asked what town Christ was born in.   Where were the apostles first called Christians?   It wasn’t Geneva or Scotland).  And if Christianity shaped Eastern culture, then the typical Western responses to “Byzantinism” or “early Church apostasy” lose some force.   (This is a very interesting point, but I won’t pursue it now).

In one of my monarchist discussions on a theonomy message board, in responding to the standard charge (Moses forever instituted theocratic republicanism for all time and all places), I asked why the early church, the medieval church, and even Calvin (for what it’s worth) all viewed monarchy with more or less primacy? (To be fair to the theonomists, I’m not entirely sure to the answer.  I think it has something to do with Romano-Byzantinism, but I really do not know enough to answer that question; I do know that the historical church’s position on this matter was NOT the reconstructionist position).

And so we have something like the following conclusions:  in their best moments (Bahnsen, North, Morecraft et al) theonomists will advocate something like “reconstructing” society or defending Western civilization.  Most astute Christians know that Western Civilization is tied to Christianity.  Here’s the problem:  it’s rather odd to say that you are defending Western civilization’s cultural legacy while at the same time trashing what it’s fathers said about the following:  the visible church, politics, art (e.g., icons), kingship, and economics (they weren’t free market capitalists).

While I moderate comments, I will allow any interested theonomist to comment.  I moderate the comments to keep trolls out.

Review (1) of Russian Orthodoxy Resurgent

Gerrard and Gerrard (hereafter GG) attempt to locate the place of the Russian Orthodox Church in modern Russia in contrast to the Soviet Union’s officially atheistic policy.  Such a question is of supreme importance.  From an American standpoint, this issue needs to be faced, for the answers given to these questions will likely determine American foreign policy in the Slavic world.

Right-wing Cold Warriors see the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) as a vehicle of state propaganda and perhaps an impediment to the creation of a global market force led by Westerners (e.g., the philosophy of neo-conservatism).  Left-wing Westerns are likely dismayed that the ROC took such a key role in downing state socialism in Russia.   Also, they oppose the ROC’s strict (sometimes violent) opposition to sodomy.

Both left- and right-wing forces in the West, then, are allied against Russia.  This is evident in that all media outlets on both sides of the aisle (e.g., Fox and CNN) are anti-Russian (or anti-Putin, more specifically). At the end of the preface, GG makes a very startling (from an academic Western) and wise pronouncement:  whatever Russia’s future may be, it will not be Western and cannot ever be (xiv).  This is probably the wisest and most intelligent remark made by an academician about Russia–it also cuts against the grain of both neo-conservatism and neo-liberalism).

Prologue

GG gives a brief but very well-written account of the nature and history of the ROC.  One is surprised at how accurate and almost sympathetic their reading of Orthodoxy is.  The authors give considerable detail to the nature of Orthodox liturgy and more particularly, the place of “liturgical time.”  This is important for the next Chapter.

Social Vision from Fantasy Novels

I realize by looking for political ethics in fairy tales, I will probably miss the point.   But if the author was a failed Christian socialist in the 19th century, and who for all his faults articulated an interesting social vision, one is justified in looking for social visions.

William Morris held to a non-statist form of socialism.  Perhaps lacking a well-informed Christian faith, and perhaps being unable to transcend his own Western position, he was unable to find what he so rightly sought.

Despite some of Morris’s wackier views, I can’t help but think his social vision has something to commend it.  State Socialism has obviously failed, yet democratic capitalism lacks the aesthetic charm and is a modern blip on the radar.  Fortunately, many communal ethicists have posited  middle ways.

Morris’s work (The House of the Wolfings) begins by showing a community that is knit together by blood, labor, and liturgy (not in the overt Christian sense, but by ritual that transcends the mundane).

Divided Theonomy?

Continuing my critique of current theonomic trends.

In the last post I asked if 1 Samuel 8 condemned all monarchies (the critique presumed a theonomic reading of the Pentateuch).  I think I demonstrated it did not.  In my beginning post on theonomy, I listed a broad outline of the way this critique would proceed.   To be sure, no one post will be overly thorough nor will it constitute the last word on theonomy.  However, I am not trying to refute theonomy to the hilt; indeed, it captures many valid points.  I am simply saying that 1) theonomy in its current position is inadequate, and 2) current theonomists are not capable of leading the vanguard against (post)modernity.  In other words, Gary North, despite all of his wackiness (Or maybe because of it!), could capably dissect erroneous ethical and statist positions.  There was a reason why he could do that:  he took his epistemology seriously.  This meant that North knew that philosophical questions are not easily ignored.  By contrast, many of today’s theonomists not only do not take philosophical training seriously, they actually ignore it or even work against it (whenever I debate theonomists on Christology–their inadequate Christology–they simply accuse me of ignoring Scripture and elevating philosophy over God’s word).

It’s not fair to theonomists to say they aren’t up to Bahnsen’s mental level.  Who is?  But there are a few things Bahnsen said that I–and other Van Tillians–have taken quite seriously:  one cannot simply parrot one’s masters.  You actually have to *think*.  This means understanding today’s situation and knowing enough about one’s own philosophical commitments to consistently answer the spirit of the age.  Today’s Theonomists really don’t do this.  They focus on a few issues (which are largely irrelevant to 99% of the Christian world) along the lines of refuting Westminster California and proving that the Confession vindicates theonomy after all (I think the Confession is deliberately silent on that issue).

Here’s where this becomes dangerous:  because of such a myopic focus theonomists are generally incapable of dealing with challenges to the faith that are not directly related to narrow applications of God’s law.  Compare this to Rushdoony, Bahnsen, and North–men who were capable of intellectually meeting  different attacks on the faith.

There is another danger theonomists are running into.  Most theonomists are descendants of Van Til (including yours truly at a time).  Despite Van Til’s fairly awful reading of philosophical history, he was right on a lot of important issues:  the need to presuppositionally argue from your opponent’s own philosophical position, and Van Til’s rejection of the Clarkian nonsense.

But today’s theonomists really can’t claim Van Til, and one of the reason’s is understandable.  CVT was hard to understand, even to those with a philosophical background.  However, Van Tillians generally went in two directions: 1) they began reading philosophy more seriously and went into various analytical and continental philosophical models (I took the latter route via James K. A. Smith’s reading of Radical Orthodoxy) or they went Federal Vision.  Theonomists are justified (perhaps for the wrong reasons) or rejecting the latter.

As a result, I conjecture, today’s theonomists have embraced Gordon Clark.  Okay, I grant Clark said things about social ethics that really aren’t that bad, and are certainly preferable to the nonsense on the West Coast.  And he is a good writer, but when you openly champion the Nestorian heresy it really doesn’t matter what you get right.  And then theonomists have to face up to the fact that Clark has his own bizarre view of epistemology (the only things we can know are what are justified and deduced from Scripture).

Intellectually, the future doesn’t look too bright for the younger generation of theonomists.  The have (often deliberately) not continued in their teachers’ legacy and have saddled themselves with a group of Calvinists who not only have often ridiculed theonomy but champion heretical and bizarre notions as well.

Does 1 Samuel 8 Condemn *all* monarchies?

In my first post I outlined the direction I will take in addressing theonomy from a monarchist perspective.  But first, a few words about theonomy.  I was a theonomist.  I read everything Bahnsen wrote (and most of Rushdoony) and listened to near 700 lectures by Bahnsen on all topics.  I even published an article or two in the Rushdoony magazine, Faith for all of Life.  I think I’m qualified to judge theonomy.

And that’s not to say that everything by theonomists are wrong.  Theonomists were some of  the first to warn against a rising statism (which we see now) and were laughed at by the tenured Reformed professors.  In that sense, the theonomists are correct.  Even more, the critics of theonomy haven’t really offered a coherent response to the statism in America today (outside of a few vague appeals to the “conservative tradition” and “free market”).

But I think theonomy has massive, conceptual problems that cannot be salvaged on thoenomic principles alone.  (However, I do think much of what theonomists aim for can be salvaged by other traditions that allow for Tradition and Liturgical Rule; normally, these are monarchist traditions but not always so).

Another point:  we are discussing ethics here, and social ethics at that.  As Greg Bahnsen, John Frame, and many ethicists from differing traditions have all pointed out, ethical discourse assumes the presence of the following:  in order to have a good ethical position you have to have Norm, Motive, and Fact.

First Samuel 8
God via Samuel says the people erred in wanting a king, and that the king will do bad stuff to them like raise taxes, conscript labor, and draft for imperial wars (e.g., like in the American Republic today).   And the people wanted a king to be like the (pagan) nations around them.  God ends it with the troubling words, “They have not rejected thee, but me.”

How does a monarchist respond to this?  I’ll try:

The underlying assumption here is that we should imitate old Testament Israel.  Why?  Here, the theonomist is more consistent than the average conservative Christian, for he has a framework that demands he imitate Old Testament social mores.  I can show the theonomic paradigm untenable, but I won’t do so in this post.  I’ll try to explain where the theonomist is coming from.    Several times in the Pentateuch Moses alludes to having representatives for the tribes of Israel.  The theonomist sees these passages and infers “theocratic republicanism,” and upon that inference, concludes that God proscribes Monarchies.

However, I think the theonomist has jumped the gun.  Later medieval monarchies all had representative government on the local level.  Secondly, I question whether the Old Testament is necessarily proscriptive towards monarchy.  God in the law gives orders for kings (more on that later).  Secondly, Israel’s most iconic (deliberate use of that term) is King David.  Yes, David was very sinful, but if monarchy is evil on Old Testament terms, then David’s very political existence was open rebellion against God, and when the prophets later spoke of the restoration of a Davidic Figure, they too, according to this logic, were sinning.*
Basic to any ethical reasoning is the place of motive. Motive is not a sufficient condition for ethical reasoning, but it is a necessary one.  And before theonomists object, Bahnsen spent 90 consecutive lectures arguing that point.   One, then, has to ask what is the motive of the people then and the monarchists now (well, now and essentially at all periods throughout church history).  The people of Israel wanted a king to be like the pagans around them.  Seriously, even a hostile reading of monarchy has to grant that monarchists do not seek a king to be like the pagans around us.  Indeed, in seeking a king we are being as unlike the pagans as possible

As noted above, ethical reasoning assumes that one has the right facts.  On a simple level, this means that you have relevant data.  Good ethical syllogisms operate on the following:

1. Moral norm
2. Statement of relevant fact.
:. Conclusion.

1.  Fighting communism is morally necessary.
2.  Communists are invading Topeka, KS.
:. We should move to Topeka and defend the city.

That is a logically consistent argument.  People, however, will point to #2 as flawed.  Why? Because Communists are not currently invading Topeka (D.C., yes).

Another form of relevant fact is taking account of one’s situation.  This is not relativism, for the moral norm stays the same.   The situation the monarchist finds himself in today is not the same as the people of Israel found themselves 3,500 years ago.  While that doesn’t necessarily prove my case overall, it does severely weaken the theonomic claim to 1 Samuel 8 as a defeater to monarchy.

Fourthly, the assumed criticism is that God condemns big governments (I agree) and that in condemning monarchy in Samuel’s time, God is condemning big government (again, I agree).  <leap in logic> Therefore, monarchy is big government.  Sadly, at this point the discussion turns in to who can shout the loudest and say, “Nah-uh!”  Fortunately, most theonomists are free-market, Misesian capitalists.  I have an “in” at this point.  I can simply point them to the scholarship of Misesian free-market capitalist Hans-Hermann Hoppe’s Democracy: The God that Failed.  Hoppe, despite his overall pagan social ethic, documents how monarchical governments provided greater economic freedom to their people.  Republican governments, contrariwise, ruin economic systems (as a general rule).

Also, it is not true that one necessarily has greater freedom in a republic, but that is for another posts on monarchy, republics, and oligarchy.

* Many of the theonomic critics of monarchy are anti-biblical theology.  This means, in contradiction to most of the Church’s exegesis, whether Protestant, Catholic, or Orthodox, that biblical theology sees types and figures and fulfillments in Scripture.  The irony here is that when I point out that the fulfilment of Israel’s hopes–God Incarnate–was a King, they respond that, “Yeah, but that’s not applicable in our case,” which means it’s a type, which means it’s something they normally don’t like.

A Monarchist Response to Theonomy

This response will probably span several posts.  Initially, I wanted to address the tired-old criticism of monarchy drawn from (flawed) interpretations of 1 Samuel 8 where God condemns the people of Israel for wanting a king.  1 Samuel 8 isn’t precisely a theonomic proof-text.  It has little to do with the law of God and since 90% of theonomic work today is done in response to anti-theonomists, and since the anti-theonomists have no reason to appeal to 1 Samuel 8, theonomists do not usually appeal to 1 Samuel 8.

Built around the rebuttal to their use of Samuel will be a constructed criticism of theonomic reasoning, failure to understand the history of philosophy, inadquate use of sola scriptura, and basic ignorance of Western and Christian History (the last one being most pointed, since theonomists usually think of themselves as the last defenders of Western Civilization.  I think it will go along the lines of:

1. Rebuttal of the flawed use of 1 Samuel 8
2. Inadequate epistemology
3. Failure to understand logic, Church history, or Western Civilization