Written by Nicholas T. Batzig |
Tuesday, November 22, 2022
Those who have been swept up with various forms of theonomy (or Christian Nationalism) should reflect deeply on the redemptive-historical role of the Old Covenant civil law as well as on how the Apostles spiritually applied it to the New Covenant church. 

With a burgeoning interest in the idea of Christian Nationalism, the Christian Church in America has seen a renewed interest in modified versions of theonomy. Theonomy was a politico-theological movement that arose out of Reformed theological circles in the 1970’s and 1980’s. The central figures in this movement were R.J. Rushdooney, Gary North, Greg Bahnsen, Ken Gentry, and Gary DeMar. The various forms of theonomy have commonly been denominated by both adherents and critics, “dominion theology,” “Christian reconstructionism,” or “general equity theonomy.” While differences certainly exist in the specific way in which the theonomists packaged their proposals, there is a common commitment to emphasize that God desires the implimentation of the Old Covenant civil laws into the governments of the world in the New Covenant.
Legion are the problems with the theonomic proposals–not least of which is the fact that the Apostles never taught the fledgling New Covenant churches to labor for the implementation of the Old Covenant civil law into the government. Theonomy is utterly dependent upon the embrace of a postmillennialism that inevitably demands the implementation of a Christian theistic ethic into the fabric of every society. This makes nearly every form of theonomy a present non-reality that is dependent on a misconstrued eschatological hope. However, there are two other overarching hermeneutical reasons why theonomy is built on a defunct understanding of the role of the civil law in redemptive history.
In his chapter, “The Mosaic Theocracy,” in Eschatology of the Old Testament, Geerhardus Vos explained the unique place of the theocracy in redemptive history. He wrote,
“The eschatological idea influencing the constitution of the theocracy becomes dependent on the interaction of the type and the antitype. The future state imposes its own stamp on the theocracy, an actual institution of Israel. The theocratic structure projects its own character into the picture of the future. Heaven reflected itself on Israel and Israel became part of the future. . .There is somewhat of the shadowy, inadequate character of the prefiguration that passes over into the description of what the eschatological will be like when it comes. The antitype impresses its stamp upon the theocratic structure and imparts to it somewhat of its transcendent, absolute character. The theocracy has something ideal or unattainable about it. Its plan, as conceived by the law, hovers over the actual life of Israel. The theocracy in the idea transcends its embodiment in experience.”1
Vos proceeded to explain that this “unattainable” ideal of the eternal rule of God stamped on Old Covenant Israel served its purpose until the coming of Christ, who, in turn, spiritualized or eternalized everything about the theocracy. He explained,
“Israel fell short of the ideal at all points. This theocratic organization of Israel had something ideal about it from the beginning. It could not be attained. It hovered over the life of the people. . .The great principles and realities of theocratic life were embodied in external form. This was the only way to clothe the essence of the theocracy in a way that the Israelites could grasp. In order to keep the future eschatological picture in touch with Israel’s religion these forms had to be maintained. The prophets had to give the essence in particular forms. Eschatological revelation is presented in the language of the Mosaic institutions.
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The primary catalysts driving the gender industry are rooted in technological developments entwined with an unfettered market. Medical-sex identities, along with technological reproduction, are at the forefront of attempts to advance our species beyond our current human borders. The strategic linking of an agenda aimed at deconstructing reproductive sex with a civil rights movement centered on same-sex attraction was pure genius—a metaphorical fox in the henhouse, but dressed as a hen. We are on the brink of breakthroughs in genetic engineering, artificial intelligence (AI), and artificial reproduction, each comprising significant industries. The convergence of these fields indicates a trajectory towards a future that transcends our current human state. 

I first came across investigative journalist Jennifer Bilek’s work in 2020, when her essay “The Billionaires Behind the LGBT Movement” was published in First Things. It was a stunning piece—there are several journalists committed to exposing the transgender ‘movement’ (or industry, as Bilek calls it), but nobody has peeled away the façade of civil rights, pink-and-blue flags, and ‘trans kids’ like Bilek. If we had a mainstream press truly committed to uncovering and reporting the truth about the forces driving our culture today, her work would be cited by them across the board.
Bilek is an artist, activist, and investigative journalist based out of New York City, and her work has been published in Tablet Magazine, The Federalist, The Post Millennial, and elsewhere. Bilek spent her life on the Left, but now she says that she is in the “political wilderness,” reporting on the biggest cultural story of our day while progressives ignore it or cover it up. Bilek also runs the Substack Jennifer’s Newsletter and the blog The 11th Hour, where she explains her focus:
I write at the intersection of humanity, technology, and runaway capitalism. At this intersection stands transgenderism, what I believe is a glamorous ad campaign generated by elites, invested in tech and pharma, to normalize the changing of human biology.
Bilek is doing something that journalists used to do instinctively: following the money. What she has uncovered is a bombshell that reveals the extent to which the transgender phenomenon has been created by super-wealthy LGBT donors who have a dark and sinister agenda. Her journalism supplies the missing pieces needed to complete the picture of how and why the transgender movement so swiftly achieved cultural dominance. Bilek kindly agreed to an interview in which she shared what she has uncovered thus far.
You’ve done groundbreaking reporting on the extent to which billionaires have been quietly backing the LGBT movement behind the scenes. To what extent are the cultural shifts we’ve seen in the past few years astroturfed by big donors?
The cultural shifts we see today regarding gender identity are largely influenced by huge capital inflows from governments, philanthropists, corporations, and investment management and accounting firms like Blackrock and Ernst & Young. While some believe that the ideology originated in universities, funding is directed to these institutions to promote the idea of synthetic sex identities as progressive, which students then carry into the world.
To comprehend the motivations of governments, philanthropists, and big business in this ideology, we must examine its implications. Gender ideology deconstructs human reproductive sex legally, linguistically, socially, and is also attacking mostly young people’s reproductive organs by sterilizing them. It is marketing disassociation from sexed reality presented as progressive, which is especially confusing to young people in using their naturally rebellious youthfulness as a corporate trap.
Both the money and the ideology come out of the medical-tech sector, which is itself being integrated into culture through a philanthropic structure that has been attached to the LGBT civil rights political apparatus. The Arcus Foundation, one of the largest LGBT NGOs, plays a central role in this regard, not only by providing extensive funding to a plethora of institutions but also by introducing a tracking apparatus called MAP and encouraging wealthy philanthropists to invest in the LGBT constituency. Jon Stryker, the founder of Arcus, has a background in banking and is the heir to the corporate fortune that is Stryker Medical. Stryker Medical, with its ventures into the facial feminization surgery market, exemplifies the interconnection between the LGBT political apparatus and the medical-tech industry.
The Pritzker family in Chicago is one of the richest families in America. Though their fortune evolved out of the Hyatt Hotel industry, their predominant investments now are in the medical-tech sector. Their massive philanthropic efforts have made them some of the biggest drivers/funders of the gender industry. Tim Gill of the Gill Foundation—the second largest LGBT NGO in America and connected to Jon Stryker and his family—contributes significantly as well, originally coming from the tech sector and now involved in a home AI platform business. The tech giants—Google, Intel, Microsoft, Facebook, Salesforce, Hewlett Packard, and Amazon—leverage their financial power both to fund this industry in body dissociation and also to browbeat entire states to accept the ideology by threatening the withdrawal of their capital. They did this in 2016, when they signed an amicus brief against North Carolina. After that the state insisted on bathroom privacy for boys and girls in schools.
The rapid proliferation of this ideology is attributed to tremendous financial pressure and mainstream media censorship of critics, which aligns with the media’s ownership by the medical-tech industry. The intertwining of conglomerates like Hearst, Conde’ Nast, and Disney with prominent pharma platforms contributes to the pervasive influence of the techno-medical complex in America.
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Rome was not built in a day, and neither was the confessional, Reformed, Protestant church. The faithful men and women of the seventeenth century continued the work of the sixteenth-century Reformers by bringing every doctrine, every practice, and every thought captive to the Word of God.

In our day, many Christians have a view of church history that is a popular, but unfortunate, caricature. They believe the church started in the first century, but then soon fell into apostasy. The true faith was lost until Martin Luther recovered it in the sixteenth century. Then, nothing at all significant happened until the twentieth century, when Billy Graham started hosting his evangelistic crusades. Regrettably, we form caricatures of history on account of our ignorance of history. Too often, our historical awareness is sorely lacking. What’s more, we don’t fully know where we are, because we don’t know where we’ve been. We might be aware of certain historical figures and events, but we are often unacquainted with what our sovereign Lord has been doing in all of history, particularly in those periods that are less familiar to us.
This is the seventeenth year that we at Tabletalk are focusing on a specific century of church history.
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