Written by Ben C. Dunson |
Monday, April 15, 2024
Dawkins is the beneficiary of a political and legal system shaped over centuries by Christian principles of justice, human nature, and more. He appears blissfully unaware that he is sawing off the very branch suspending him safely above the mob of Islamists, radical leftists, and others, ready and willing to dispense with classical liberals like himself who only (rather ineffectively) impede their advance and triumph.

Perhaps to the surprise of many, Richard Dawkins, famed “New Atheist” of yesteryear, in a recent radio interview called himself a “cultural Christian.” He was quick to clarify that he is “not a believer” in the actual teachings of Christianity, but nonetheless told the interviewer “I love hymns and Christmas carols, and I sort of feel at home in the Christian ethos. I feel that we are a Christian country in that sense.” This exchange was prompted by the discomfort Dawkins felt in the build-up to Easter seeing England full of lights celebrating the Muslim holiday of Ramadan.
Beyond mere aesthetics, Dawkins also stated that he likes to “live in a culturally Christian country” because it is kind to women and tolerant of homosexuals, whereas Islam is fundamentally hostile to both. The tenets of political liberalism happily coincide for Dawkins with a basically Christian culture, though in reality, the specific form of tolerance Dawkins takes to be the Christian culture of Britain is a twisting of the Christian virtues of kindness and love. What is particularly striking is how the rise of militant Islam, combined with the rapidly increasing numbers of Muslims throughout the UK (and all of Europe for that matter), is what prompted Dawkins’ reflections on Christian culture.
Islam is a militantly intolerant religion, but it is also a confident one. Islamic teaching—as wrong as it is—provides its adherents with an understanding of why they exist and how they should live in the world. It gives them meaning and purpose. Political liberalism is impotent in the face of Islam because political liberalism has no positive vision for life. It puts forth certain rights: life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and so forth. Yet, it is unable to tell you why you should even want to live, what you should desire to be free to do, or how you can find happiness. Some of those rights, properly understood, are good and important as far as they go. No one may kill or imprison anyone else without cause; in general, it is best to let people live their own lives without massive interference from others, and so on. Islam, however, has a positive vision for all of life, which is why it is bulldozing every existentially empty competitor in its path.
Dawkins, I’m sure without realizing it, is the heir to many more benefits of Britain’s Christian past than he realizes. In the interview, he primarily focused on the outward, mostly aesthetic, trappings of Christianity, as well as his conflation of Christianity and progressive social mores. But consider just a few of the much more foundational things citizens of nations formerly shaped by Christianity enjoy, though often take for granted. The English, as also their American cousins, are subject to a long history of defending the concept of impartial justice.
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Written by Ben C. Dunson |
Wednesday, March 27, 2024
Therapeutic-antinomian preaching follows a predictable pattern. Take any imperative of Scripture, tell the congregation how they are unable to obey that imperative, and then urge them to trust that Christ has obeyed it for them. Then end the sermon. Every sermon will be the same, no matter the text.

This week my wife wrote a very helpful review of, and interaction with, Abigail Shrier’s new book Bad Therapy: Why the Kids Aren’t Growing Up. Shrier’s book is an expose of the many ways in which modern therapy, under the guise of empathetic caring, has made children into psychological and emotional wrecks.
As my wife put it:
Shrier outlines the problem: therapy and therapeutic concepts (“mental health”) are ubiquitous today and parents are quick to find therapeutic solutions for everything, including medicating kids with psychotropic drugs and stimulants to treat normal childhood behaviors. Any pain or disappointment is equated with trauma and, in our risk-averse society, must be avoided at all costs, or treated as a problem to be solved with therapy and drugs.
Shrier doesn’t get into the implications of her research for the church, though my wife also rightly pointed out that “[t]his ideology is even common among Christian parents, who readily rely on therapy to address perceived behavioral issues (aka sin) or on medication for normal childhood characteristics like being wiggly or distracted.”
Therapeutic concepts are so prevalent in our society that it is often hard to understand how they impact our reasoning in different areas of life. In fact, one could say that therapeutic thinking serves as one of the chief supports of a heresy that plagues the church today, as it has in every age, the heresy of antinomianism, that is, being against (anti) God’s law (nomos) as the necessary rule of life for the Christian.
Antinomianism rarely takes the form of an overt and explicit rejection of God’s moral law. Normally it is far more subtle. A particularly subtle (and thus far more dangerous) form today goes like this: No one, not even a born-again Christian, is capable of keeping God’s law perfectly. The law simply shows us our sin, and thus our need for the grace of forgiveness in Christ. Everything in the two previous sentences is true except for the word “simply.” It is with this word that antinomianism slithers in unnoticed.
It is not the case that God’s moral law simply shows regenerate believers their sin. The law does indeed do that (Rom 3:19–20; 7:7), but the law is also the necessary guide and rule for the life of the Christian. Obedience to God’s law, by the working of the Holy Spirit (Rom 8:7–9), will be worked by God in the life of every genuine Christian. No one can be justified (“declared in the right with God”) on the basis of obedience to the law (Rom 3:20; Gal 2:15–16; Phil 3:8–9), but all believers are brought into submission to God’s law, which is simply submission to God himself, as a necessary outworking of God’s grace in their lives (1 Cor 9:21; Titus 2:11–14; James 1:25; 2:8).
The therapeutic mindset (a warmed-over Freudianism) tells us that our chief problems in life come from outside of ourselves, that we are passive victims of any number of traumas we have experienced. We likely did not even recognize them as traumas at the time. What is more, therapy teaches us—the helpless victims we are—to see all difficulties in life, from the smallest to the greatest, as insurmountable ordeals inflicted upon us. We’re told that the normal stresses of work, school, family, finances, and more, have wounded us beyond our ability to cope. Thus, we need therapy (or drugs), which is quite convenient for those whose livelihood depends on their patients remaining unwell. Instead of being taught to cast our cares on the Lord (1 Pet 5:6–7) and confront and overcome those things that create anxiety (Matt 6:25–34; Phil 4:4–7) Christians are left defenseless. Modern therapeutic methods encourage, rather than help overcome, extreme mental, emotional, and spiritual fragility.
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Written by Ben C. Dunson |
Tuesday, March 12, 2024
The founders insisted that our rights are derived from God. If our rights are derived merely from state diktat then they can be taken away by the state under any pretext (or none at all). It is obviously the case that our rights can be taken from us even when we acknowledge that they come from God. Someone or some group may be powerful enough to deny us the freedom to speak openly, the freedom to peaceably assemble, and any other freedom we are granted in our Constitution. Such actions, however, would be obvious usurpations of rights the founders insisted were intrinsic to the human condition because they were granted by God, not men.

Politico reporter Heidi Przybyla recently said on MSNBC that Christian Nationalists (as a small subset of Christians) are the only people in America who have ever believed their political rights are granted by God. Her claim was rightly met with widespread ridicule and refutation. I have no way of knowing whether Przybyla’s words are as ignorant as they seem or rather whether they represent an open and unembarrassed rejection of America’s founding principles. One fellow traveler of Przybyla’s came to her defense with the assertion that if our rights are derived from God then they are at the mercy of anyone claiming to speak for God. Przybyla signaled that this was her main point as well. This inclines me to believe that Przybyla spoke of what she desires for our nation.
Any elementary school child knows (or at least once knew) the absurdity of the claim that the founders didn’t believe our rights come from God. The obvious example people have pointed to is the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” This was a notion acknowledged by virtually everyone at America’s founding. Consider a few examples (taken from Thomas G. West, The Political Theory of America’s Founding, p. 85-86):
The 1765 Massachusetts Assembly Resolves on the Stamp Act: “That there are certain essential rights of the British constitution of government, which are founded in the law of God and nature, and are the common rights of mankind.” 
Alexander Hamilton: “[T]here is a supreme intelligence who rules the world, and has established laws to regulate the actions of his creatures. . . . This is what is called the law of nature. . . . Upon this law, depend the natural rights of mankind.” 
James Wilson: “[P]roperly speaking, there is only one general source of superiotiy and obligation. God is our creator: in him we live, and move, and have our being. . . . [H]e, as master of his own work, can prescribe to it whatever rules to him shall seem meet. . . . This is the true source of all authority.”
Even John Locke argued similarly when he grounded the right to revolution against tyrants in his Second Treatise on Government in “the common refuge, which God hath provided for all Men, against Force and Violence.” Unless such a refuge existed in God’s moral law and the natural rights derived from it, Locke insisted elsewhere, man “could have no law but his own will, no end but himself.
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Written by Ben C. Dunson |
Thursday, February 15, 2024
It is bad enough when anyone gives in to the sinister pressures of culture, but it is significantly worse when people in positions of prominence (like Begg) do so. It makes it all the harder for non-prominent Christians to stand firm, because strident advocates of immorality and unbelief will point to such capitulations as evidence that the biblical position isn’t so clear after all. This is already occurring with regard to Begg’s comments. While Christians cannot single-handedly, and instantly, change the law of fashion prevalent in their nation, they can direct the law of fashion toward just goals in their own communities. 

Laws change behavior. While they cannot make everyone do the right thing, if penalties are sufficiently stringent, and if they are actually enforced, good laws can at least make most people do the right thing most of the time. Without just laws justly applied a healthy society is impossible. But laws are not enough to ensure that justice prevails in a nation. There must also be widespread social pressure for people to do the right thing. Thomas West notes, in fact, in The Political Theory of the American Founding (quotes from chapter 11), that for the American founders, social pressure was seen to be even more important than good laws. James Madison called this social pressure the “law of fashion.” Indeed, “public opinion,” Madison maintained, “sets bounds to every government and is the real sovereign in every free one.” John Adams agreed and therefore insisted that
it is a principal end of government to regulate this passion, which in its turn becomes a principal means of government. It is the only adequate instrument of order and subordination in society, and alone commands effective obedience to laws, since without it neither human reason, nor standing armies, would ever produce that great effect.
The last week provides several clear illustrations of how central the “law of fashion” is in determining how things go in our country. First, there is the border crisis. In the past, Texas Governor Greg Abbott has not been particularly quick to act in preventing mass illegal crossings into his state. Time will tell if this is all a piece of political theatre, but it appears that Abbott is finally willing to take significant steps to close the border. This includes calling the mass influx of illegal crossing an invasion (thus invoking Article IV, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution) and defying the recent Supreme Court decision that the Border Patrol can begin cutting razor wire along the border. Abbott is not the kind of Governor to take risky actions. Unless, that is, he perceives that doing so will be widely popular. Abbott knows that most Americans are troubled by the massive numbers of illegal aliens coming into America and want Abbott to stand firm, but even more than that, he has likely been encouraged to continue standing up to the border malfeasance of the Federal government because of the extremely positive response his actions received among the Governors of 25 other states. These Governors signed letters showing they stand with Texas in support of the state’s constitutional right to defend its border regardless of Federal action or inaction. Some even pledged the use of their own states’ National Guard units. The U.S. Constitution clearly gives Abbott the right to secure Texas’ border, but it wasn’t until the “law of fashion” did its work that Abbott became willing to act. That is to say, a just law wasn’t enough; social pressure, more than anything else, is what pushed Abbott over the edge.
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Written by Ben C. Dunson |
Tuesday, February 6, 2024
At the founding, and for most of America’s history, the moral formation at America’s schools and universities included instruction in religion. George Washington warned, for example, in his Farewell Address that we must not “indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion.” Massachusetts’ Constitution speaks similarly: “The happiness of a people, and the good order and preservation of civil government, essentially depends upon piety, religion, and morality.” John Adams’ comments on the necessity of religion for true virtue show that it was Christianity, not some nebulous sense of the divine, that must be promoted. Christians recognize, or should do so, that education independent of moral formation is not only impossible, it is undesirable.

Every day or so I encounter a conservative (sometimes even an exasperated moderate on the left) bemoaning the capture of America’s educational system by woke zealots; 2+2=5 and related nonsense. I bemoan the capture of this system too. Although my children are home-schooled I know how bad it is going to be when today’s publicly-schooled children grow up and land in positions of power and influence in government, business, and culture. We’ve got plenty of signs already for what that will mean. However, what I can’t do is join in the refrain of well-meaning conservatives: “Just teach the facts. Education, not indoctrination. Etc.” Such slogans are not only impossible; they are undesirable, even if attainable. They arise out of the same mentality that has left conservatives unable to respond adequately to transgenderism and other social maladies. Instead of addressing the root problem, they address a symptom. We get opposition to men in women’s sports and locker rooms, when the real problem is that transgenderism is a perverse rebellion against the created order that must be opposed in its totality. Likewise, timid conservatives think that the only way to remove harmful ideologies from the nation’s schools is to require schools to teach nothing but supposedly neutral facts, the basics of math, grammar, writing, and so on.
But education cannot avoid moral formation. That is the point of education. Schools exist (they should anyway) to form hearts and minds, to provide students with facts and the moral framework in which to understand those facts. “Education, not indoctrination,” if pressed to its logical conclusion, would produce mindless repositories of random facts, perhaps capable of performing tasks in the marketplace and making money, but little more.
No subject can be adequately taught in a moral vacuum. Consider history. Is the study of history simply the memorization of names, places, and dates? I suppose one could attempt to approach it in that way. In addition to being intensely boring, however, such a study would be utterly pointless. The reason we study history is to learn from the past, not in a superficial “history repeats itself” way in which we think we can predict the future based on historical parallels, but in the sense that we see in our study that people, despite many technological advances, tend to act in certain ways. We learn that certain kinds of situations tend to produce certain kinds of outcomes; “Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom,” Benjamin Franklin warned; “As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.” And so on (all quotations in this column are from Thomas West, The Political Theory of the American Founding, chapters 8-9). What about literature? Is literature of value only as a diversion and time-waster? Or is it not beneficial because it enables us to peer into the human soul in its manifold diversity? Can math facts, or physics facts, or grammar facts, be learned without considering the use to which those facts should be put?
With a little reflection I think most people can see that an amoral approach is not only impossible, it is undesirable. While I share the dismay of my fellow citizens as they watch leftist ideologies destroy America’s schools, what is needed is moral formation in what is good, true, and beautiful, rather than an attempt to reject moral formation completely. American conservatives would do well to return to the founders of our nation to see what they thought about education. Doing so would reveal how thoroughly out of step the “neutral” approach to education is with the founding spirit.
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Written by Ben C. Dunson |
Thursday, January 25, 2024
We could with justice call Hodge a Protestant Nationalist. Hodge explains the way in which God’s moral law must be the foundation of American political life like this: The people of this country being rational, moral, and religious beings, the government must be administered on the principles of reason, morality, and religion. By a like necessity of right, the people being Christians and Protestants, the government must be administered according to the principles of Protestant Christianity.

Charles Hodge (1797–1878) was the third professor at Princeton Theological Seminary, once the leading institution of Reformed pastoral education and theology in America. He was also one of the most significant and able defenders of orthodox Christian theology in the years in which theological liberalism began to dominate so many churches, seminaries, and other institutions in America. Hodge was a prolific scholar, writing biblical commentaries, devotional works, and often addressing contemporary cultural issues. His most famous work, however, is his three-volume Systematic Theology, published between 1871–73.
This trilogy, though it does not normally address contemporary political issues, has one major section that does. It is found in Hodge’s treatment of the fourth commandment. In Hodge’s day (and for decades afterward in many places) the majority of American cities and states had “blue laws,” laws requiring businesses to close on Sunday. The basis for such laws was the Bible. Was it right, Hodge asked, in a republic that granted the free exercise of religion to its citizens, to impose upon those citizens biblical injunctions they might not agree with? Hodge devotes eight pages (out of a total of twenty-seven on the fourth commandment) to answer this question. His discussion is beneficial beyond what he says about the Sabbath itself because certain foundational political principles can be extracted from it. It also provides a stimulating treatment for American Christians to consider with regard to the various contemporary debates about the role of Christianity in relation to America’s political system.
Hodge begins his argument with the caveats
(1.) That in every free country every man has equal rights with his fellow-citizens, and stands on the same ground in the eye of law. (2.) That in the United States no form of religion can be established; that no religious test for the exercise of the elective franchise or for holding of office can be imposed; and that no preference can be given to the members of one religious denomination above those of another. (3.) That no man can be forced to contribute to the support of any church, or of any religious institution. (4.) That every man is at liberty to regulate his conduct and life according to his convictions or conscience, provided he does not violate the law of the land.
Some of these sentiments are incompatible with Reformational views on the relationship between the state and the church (some were not even true in America’s more distant past). In that older perspective, although the church and state must always be distinguished vocationally, the state is understood to possess a mandate (within its unique sphere of authority) to see that true religion is protected and promoted in church and society at large.
However, Hodge is not a modern secular liberal either. After the quote above he continues:
On the other hand it is no less true, that a nation is not a mere conglomeration of individuals. It is an organized body. It has of necessity its national life, its national organs, national principles of action, national character, and national responsibility.
Therefore, since
men are rational creatures, the government cannot banish all sense and reason from their action, because there may be idiots among the people. As men are moral beings, it is impossible that the government should act as though there were no distinction between right and wrong. . . . As it is impossible for the individual man to disregard all moral obligations, it is no less impossible on the part of civil governments.
Perhaps some modern liberals and progressives could agree with Hodge up to this point, but he then brings religion into the discussion. Religion, Hodge writes,
must influence [man’s] conduct as an individual, as the head of a family, as a man of business, as a legislator, and as an executive officer. It is absurd to say that civil governments have nothing to do with religion. . . . A civil government cannot ignore religion any more than physiology.
Although Hodge maintains that civil government “was not constituted to teach either the one [religion] or the other [physiology] . . . it must, by a like necessity, conform its action to the laws of both.” That is to say, the state is not ordained by God to teach theology (even Calvin would agree with this), but it cannot act wholly independently of religion any more than it could totally disregard the physical constitution of men and women (though our own society is doing its best to prove Hodge wrong on this latter point). “Indeed,” Hodge continues “it would be far safer for a government to pass an act violating the laws of health, than one violating the religious convictions of its citizens. The one would be unwise, the other would be tyrannical.” One example of how the state should “conform its action to [God’s] laws” is through statutes banning public blasphemy, whether by individuals, or even by publishers.
God’s moral law, even if true religious worship and doctrine should not be enforced by the state, is the only true foundation for a just and healthy society. “It is time,” says Hodge,
that blatant atheists, whether communists, scientists, or philosophers, should know that they are as much and as justly the objects of pity and contempt, as of indignation to all right-minded men [BCD: the Old Princeton mood?].
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Written by Ben C. Dunson |
Monday, January 22, 2024
In the time somewhat near the return of Christ, we should expect a dramatic and widespread conversion of Jews the world over. This will be the very means of God bringing to pass what he promised in his ancient covenants to Israel. Nothing in Romans 9–11 points to a fulfillment of such promises by the year AD 70. I think that only one convinced on other grounds that nearly every future-oriented promise of the New Testament was fulfilled by that date could possibly think otherwise. And it seems to be a shaky foundation indeed to base such a conviction simply on Christ’s prophecy of the destruction of the temple and the fact that many visions in Revelation have an initial fulfillment in the first century.

Preterism is nothing new, but there is a specific preterist argument on the rise that I don’t recall encountering as frequently in the past. Preterism, for the uninitiated, is the idea that all, or nearly all, prophecies in the New Testament were fulfilled in the first century. It is centered in particular on the fulfillment of Christ’s words about the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem (Matt 24:1–2; Mark 13:1–2; Luke 21:5–24), a prophecy that was fulfilled in the year AD 70. There are some preterists who argue that all prophecies, including those traditionally seen as referring to the second coming of Christ and the final judgment, were fulfilled by that date. They are called full preterists and are heretics. Others, known as partial preterists, recognize that those two events are still in the future, but see nearly every other prophecy of the New Testament as already fulfilled. This view is compatible with classic Christian orthodoxy. It is very difficult to read some parts of the New Testament without at least some sort of partially preterist interpretation. Christ’s prophecy of the destruction of the temple has already been mentioned, but the language of “nearness” (e.g. Rev 1:1–3; 22:6–7, 12, 20; etc.), and the focus on the original readers in the book of Revelation (e.g., Rev 1:9, 19; chs. 2–3; etc.) is difficult to understand if there is not at least some sense in which its visions have already begun to be fulfilled. 
The preterist argument that seems to be rapidly rising in prominence today has to do with Israel in the plan of God for this age. To begin with, this interpretation usually includes the argument that Israel in the New Testament is equal with the church, though this argument itself is not unique to preterism. Romans 9:6–8 is one of the most important texts for this view:
But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring, but “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.” This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring. 
Other texts, such as Galatians 6:16 may support this view as well: “And as for all who walk by this rule, peace and mercy be upon them, and upon the Israel of God.” It may be that this verse, however, is distinguishing between “them” and “the Israel of God.” Even if it is, it is clearly referring to Christian Israelites who are included in those “who walk by this rule,” namely the rule that “neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation” (Gal 6:15). That could not be said of Israelites who did not follow Christ. Though some would argue that it is only referring to Jewish Christians, 1 Peter 2:9–10 seems more likely to be applying several Old Testament designations for Israel to Christians, probably indicating that the church is in some sense understood as a new Israel:
But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
The uniquely preterist addition to this argument has to do with the place of Israel in Romans 9–11. The basic gist of the argument is that every mention of Israel in these three chapters is either a reference to the church as Israel or was fulfilled by the year AD 70. This would include even the (from Paul’s perspective at least) future-oriented statements in Rom 11:11–32, culminating in “all Israel” being saved (11:26).
I find this understanding unpersuasive for several reasons, the chief of which is what Paul writes in Rom 11:11–16. Paul began his treatment of Israel’s place in redemptive history writing of his anguish at the unbelief of the majority of his fellow Israelites, despite their having been given the covenant promises of God (Rom 9:1–5). Even though the majority have not believed in Christ, Paul insists that God’s promises have not thereby been nullified (Rom 9:6). He does this first by explaining that there is an election within the covenantal election of Israel as a covenantal people (Rom 9:7­–26), which (citing Isaiah) he describes as a remnant within Israel as a whole (Rom 9:27–29).
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Written by Ben C. Dunson |
Thursday, December 14, 2023
Guilt must be proven in church courts, just as in secular courts. At stake is the possibility of wrongly condemning the innocent and the very existence of justice itself. The presumption of innocence, however, is in peril in the evangelical world. In fact, there are many who believe that a presumption of innocence is the very opposite of justice.

The years since George Floyd’s death have seen an acceleration of many troubling trends in evangelical churches. Few to my mind are more disturbing than the way in which certain basic principles of justice have been abandoned without so much as even an attempt to justify their abandonment, and this even among ostensibly “conservative” pastors, elders, and seminary professors.
One of the most important principles of justice is the notion that guilt must be proved, not assumed. Due process, or the presumption of innocence, which has a long history in English common law, is central to America’s judicial system (at least formally so, even if this principle is being eroded in practice). It is also at the heart of the Bible’s teaching on justice. We see this in a variety of places.
In Deuteronomy 25:1–2 there is a basic statement of what judges and courts are for, namely, to acquit the innocent and condemn the guilty, then to punish the one who is guilty. In order to ensure that all parties receive a fair trial it is required that there be at least two witnesses (Deut 17:6). It is indispensable to true justice that a “single witness shall not suffice against a person for any crime or for any wrong in connection with any offense that he has committed” (Deut 19:15). Although the Bible frames things in terms of the necessity of multiple witnesses, this is meant to accomplish exactly what the presumption of innocence does in our nation’s courts: you cannot condemn a man unless you have proven him guilty. A single witness can easily lie. With multiple witnesses, it is possible to cross-examine them and compare their individual testimonies with each other to more accurately determine the truth.
This Old Testament judicial principle is reaffirmed in Hebrews 10:28, though the New Testament focuses on the necessity of multiple witnesses in discipline cases within the church. No one may be disciplined merely on the basis of one witness (Matt 18:16; 2 Cor 13:1; 1 Tim 5:19). This means that guilt must be proven in church courts, just as in secular courts. At stake is the possibility of wrongly condemning the innocent and the very existence of justice itself.
The presumption of innocence, however, is in peril in the evangelical world. In fact, there are many who believe that a presumption of innocence is the very opposite of justice.
A recent church court case in my denomination (the Presbyterian Church in America) provides a shocking example. Pastor Ryan Biese, in a multi-part series, has documented this case in extensive detail. Here are the basic facts. In 2020 a PCA church plant in Jonesboro, Arkansas had a temporary ruling body (called a temporary session). They also had a church planter who had been appointed by the regional body of the PCA (Covenant Presbytery). Members of the church were concerned that the church-planting pastor was too progressive, farmed preaching out to others too often, and was overbearing in his leadership. Seven men in the church, following the teaching of our savior (Matt 18:15–20), presented their concerns to the temporary planting pastor and to the temporary session, and explained that they would like to consider pastoral candidates other than the planting pastor. As a still-organizing church plant, they would not yet have issued a call to a man to be their permanent pastor. In response, the temporary session brought church discipline charges against all seven men, eventually barring them from the Lord’s Supper.
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Written by Ben C. Dunson |
Monday, December 4, 2023
Laws banning abortion would make it crystal-clear to everyone that abortion is wrong. It would certainly be the case that most people would avoid secret abortions simply out of fear of punishment, but the behavioral impact of laws is more significant than that. They send unmistakable signs to everyone under their jurisdiction that certain things must not be done. We have lived in a nation where our laws themselves have been teaching us the exact opposite of the truth for 50 years. 

In a recent lecture I gave on what Christians can do to fight against the evil we see in our nation I brought up the point (by no means original to me) that a nation’s laws have a vital role in shaping the morality of the people of that nation.
This is a point famously made by Aristotle and repeated and refined by many throughout Christian history. Many Christians will argue that a nation’s morality shapes its laws (which is true), but it is absolutely essential that we understand that it works the other way as well. I think a strong argument can be made that the function of laws in shaping morality is even more important than the fact that culture shapes laws. Laws are bright red lines indicating exactly what should and should not be done. They remove ambiguity about what is required of a citizen. Admittedly, in a nation with corrupt laws, what is clearly required is often the opposite of what is good. But it can at least be said that laws are much more definite in their transformation of behavior than culture.
Many examples could be provided for how this could work in a just political order. No one disputes the fact that laws banning certain drugs, alcohol (during prohibition), bump stocks on guns, and speeding significantly lower the instances of such things. An example I used was abortion. I insisted that, if abortion were outlawed, we would see a radical diminishment in the number of abortions, which is exactly what we should desire. In fact, if proponents of abortion are correct we’d only see abortions happening among those who were willing to do so clandestinely in back alleys with coat hangers. Presumably, contrary to such proponents, that number would be vanishingly small.
The claim that many (even many pro-life advocates) make is that women who get abortions do not know that they are killing an innocent life. It is incontrovertible that this claim is false in many instances. I suspect it is false in most instances, but for the sake of argument, one could assume that there are some women (and men pressuring them) who do not in fact clearly understand that what they are doing is wrong.
Clear laws against abortion in the states, and hopefully at the national level, would serve to teach anyone contemplating an abortion that to do so is morally wrong. That is what all laws do, and that is what they should do, assuming of course that the laws are just.
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Written by Ben C. Dunson |
Wednesday, November 8, 2023
Both biblical law and natural law serve as our guides, though we must determine what aspects of biblical law were unique to Israel’s existence under the Mosaic covenant. Put differently: the basis of contemporary human law consists in the moral core of biblical law that is perpetually binding, whether that be determined through the general equity of OT law or through natural law. 

Introduction
In the Lord’s Prayer Jesus teaches his disciples to beseech God: “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matt 6:10). God’s will is always done in heaven. What, then, about the earth? Christians have been pondering this question since the beginning of the church. In this article, I will set out the classic Protestant answer to this question, an answer that I hope to show is biblical as well.
Although there are some Christians who do not believe that God’s law should have much (if any) impact on anything outside of the individual believer’s soul, this has not been the majority view in the church historically. Christians have long argued, in fact, that when Jesus taught us to pray for God’s will to be done on earth he meant that we should in some sense seek for this to be manifest in families, communities, and even the civil magistrates and legal codes of a people or nation. How precisely that is to be done has been widely debated.
Some, for example, would argue that the concrete particulars of the Mosaic law should be applied in comprehensive detail today, even those aspects of the law we would today call “civil” (including specific punishments for infractions). This is called Theonomy.
Others would argue for a very minimalistic use of divine law, limiting such exclusively to the components of law found in the Noahic covenant in Genesis 9: mainly preventing and punishing violence and theft and ensuring that society does not completely degenerate into anarchy. This is usually called a Reformed Two Kingdoms (R2K) approach, although some Baptists have also been significantly influenced by this view.
For those new to this discussion the label for a third view can be confusing at first, since it has come to be called the Classic Two Kingdoms view (sometimes the Magisterial Two Kingdoms view, since it is argued to originate among the magisterial Protestant Reformers, both Lutheran and Reformed). This view is distinguished from the R2K view in that it has a much more comprehensive place for God’s moral law in its approach to the civil magistrate, but is also distinguished from Theonomy in that it argues that the specifics of the “civil” legislation for Old Testament Israel do not remain in force today, even though there is often much that can be gleaned from the moral dimension of those laws.
A final approach would be that of Anabaptism, which in its most extreme form argues that God’s law can have nothing to do with earthly government, and thus that Christians must avoid politics and government altogether. Many Evangelicals today tend toward Anabaptism, though not usually in its most extreme form (the form found in the time of the Reformation). There are of course many approaches in non-Protestant traditions, though I will not focus on these.
By What Standard?
In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus told those listening: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them” (Matt 5:17). On the surface this would seem like a pretty straightforward statement on how Christians should apply God’s law to life in this world, including to politics. They should simply obey it as it comes to them in the Old Testament. If a law forbade the eating of any “living creature” from the ocean or a river that did not have “fins and scales” (Lev 11:10) then the Christian must not eat such a thing either. If a law prescribes stoning to death a “man or a woman who is a medium or a necromancer” (Lev 20:27) then such (astrologers and the like) should be stoned to death today as well.
It is not, however, quite so simple. Jesus also says he came to “fulfill” (v. 17) and “accomplish” (v. 18) the law. Jesus is certainly not contradicting himself in Matt 5:17, but we must explain how it can be simultaneously true that he both fulfills the law and does not abolish it. Other texts in the New Testament use similar language of fulfillment. In Rom 13:10, for example, the apostle Paul writes that “love is the fulfilling of the law.” And Paul writes elsewhere that at the heart of being a Christian is “keeping the commandments of God” (1 Cor 7:19). Jesus’ brother James calls God’s law “perfect” (James 1:25) and says that “if you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself,’ you are doing well” (James 2:8).
The questions confronting us can be formulated simply: in what sense (if any) is God’s law binding today, and in what sense (if any) is it not? To answer these questions we must provide a more systematic treatment of God’s law in the Bible.
The Threefold Division of the Law
Probably the most historically significant way of explaining the role of God’s law in his providential plan is what is known as the threefold division of the law. In this approach, God’s law is divided into three categories, or aspects: moral, ceremonial, and civil. Put briefly, the moral aspect is that which is timelessly true, that which God always requires of all people at all times, and which is not restricted to OT Israel. Murder, for example, is always wrong for all people, no matter what. That is the moral aspect of the law. The ceremonial aspect would include all laws regulating sacrifices, priesthood, and the temple, as well as those that create a physical differentiation between Israel and her pagan neighbors such as food laws, clothing laws, agricultural laws, and the like. Finally, the civil aspect covers laws defining and regulating Israel’s existence as a nation or state in the Old Testament, including judicial laws pertaining to crimes and punishments. The threefold division in its classic form goes back to at least Aquinas, though there are many precursors (Philip Ross’s From the Finger of God: The Biblical and Theological Basis for the Threefold Division of the Law provides an excellent summary of the history). But is it faithful to the Scriptures?
The threefold division has been heavily criticized among evangelical scholars. Contemporary New Testament scholar D.A. Carson, for example, in his commentary on Matthew (p. 143), states that “although the tripartite distinction is old, its use as a basis for explaining the relationship between the testaments is not demonstrably derived from the NT and probably does not antedate Aquinas.”
The threefold division is said to be unbiblical because no text of Scripture divides the law in this way. It is often added that no Israelite would have felt free to divide the law, only adhering to certain parts of it. Both of these claims are true, though only superficially. They are superficial because doctrines such as the threefold division of the law are built upon an examination of the totality of Scripture and the various ways in which it treats God’s laws, not merely on the basis of single sentences or isolated proof-texts. The Westminster Confession of Faith (1.6) helpfully states that a doctrine is biblical either if it is “expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture.” This is vitally important. Doctrinal propositions are sometimes stated expressly (that is: explicitly): “a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ” (Gal 2:16), etc. But sometimes they are deduced from “good and necessary consequence,” which is to say that they are necessary conclusions that follow from something we see in Scripture (possibly in one passage, but also possibly as a conclusion derived from many passages taken together). The Trinity (a word not found anywhere in the Bible) is a perfect example. There is only one God (Deut 6:4; 1 Tim 2:5); the Father is fully God (John 6:27; Rom 1:7); the Son is fully God (Rom 9:5; Titus 2:13); and the Holy Spirit is fully God (Matt 28:19; Luke 1:35; Acts 5:3). The doctrine of the Trinity follows from these facts as a good and necessary consequence. Such conclusions must be both good (not contradicting anything else in the Bible) and necessary (it is an inescapable conclusion). The threefold division of the law, like the Trinity, is a good and necessary consequence of the totality of biblical teaching.
Ceremonial Law
First, consider the ceremonial aspect of OT law. It is absolutely true that no Israelite in the OT could decide to keep only some aspects of the law. The law was an indivisible whole for him, though even in the OT it is clear that some aspects of the law are more important than others. The very structure of the Mosaic law displays this hierarchy of importance: as a unit the Ten Commandments, or “all of these words” (Exod 20:1), constitute the covenant made between God and Israel (Exod 34:28). These ten commandments in Exodus are set apart from all the rest of God’s laws, which are grouped together as “the rules” (Exod 21:1; see also Exod 24:3; Lev 27:34; Num 19:1; Deut 4:13–14; and Paul’s similar phrase “the law of commandments expressed in ordinances” in Eph 2:14-15).
This hierarchy is seen elsewhere in the OT as well. God could say to Israel through the prophet Amos, for example: “I hate, I despise your feasts, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies” (Amos 5:21). These feasts were commanded in God’s own law, and yet they are seen to be relatively less important than other laws, laws, for example, that have to do with basic matters of justice, which is what Amos contrasts the feasts with a few verses later: “But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream” (Amos 5:24). God relativizes one part of his own law in Amos 5. This could only be true if certain laws (such as sacrifices and feasts) are not in fact timeless, universal principles of right and wrong. That said, Israel was not meant actually to cease their feasts, but simply to combine outward observance with an inward sincerity of heart.
It is with the coming of Christ, however, that a unique and divisible ceremonial dimension of the law becomes clear. OT food laws (Acts 10:9–16, 28–29; Mark 7:19) and other laws of outward separation (Gal 2:11–14; Eph 2:14–16) are done away with because they served their temporary purpose in God’s history of redemption. This temporary purpose was to set Israel physically apart from her pagan neighbors in order to teach a spiritual principle of set-apartness from moral defilement. With Christ’s coming only the inward demand for holiness remains (1 Pet 1:14–16). The letter to the Hebrews shows in a fairly comprehensive way that the laws pertaining to the tabernacle/temple (Heb 9:1–11), priesthood (Heb 7:23–28; 10:11–14), and sacrifices (Heb 9:12–14, 23–28; 10:1–10)–in short, the whole system of OT worship–have also ceased with Christ’s coming, since the reality those laws foreshadowed has now arrived (Heb 7:11–12; 8:5–6, 13; 10:1). In short, the ceremonial laws of the OT–that is, the laws of outward holiness and worship–have served their temporary purpose in God’s plan and now are no longer binding on the Christian believer.
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