Written by J. Warner Wallace |
Thursday, October 24, 2024
I sometimes think this group of “nones” has rejected their experience in the Church rather than their belief in Jesus. That may simply be a reflection of the sad, non-evidential nature of the Church rather than a reflection of the strong evidential nature of Christianity. Some of those who have left our ranks may never have heard anything about the evidence supporting the Christian worldview in all the years they were attending church with us. 

Much has been written and discussed about the Public Religion Research Institute poll, Religious Change in America. According to the poll, “Around one-quarter of Americans (26%) identify as religiously unaffiliated in 2023, a 5 percentage point increase from 21% in 2013. Nearly one in five Americans (18%) left a religious tradition to become religiously unaffiliated, over one-third of whom were previously Catholic (35%) and mainline/non-evangelical Protestant (35%). When statistics like these are released, it’s tempting to panic and respond without properly examining the trends. The devil is always in the details, however, and a careful analysis of the data ought to energize rather than discourage us.
Opportunities abound, and the case for Christianity is more important than ever.
While more and more people say they no longer identify as Christians, the ranks of atheists and agnostics are not growing in equal percentages. So where did all the Christians go? They went to the ranks of those claiming no affiliation with any established Christian denomination or belief system (a category affectionately called, “the nones”). Importantly, those who no longer claim a Christian attachment, have not yet jumped in with the atheists or agnostics. They haven’t even jumped in with other religious groups (such as Jewish, Muslim or other believers).
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Please tell me the gospel again. I want my heart warmed by His grace. I need to remember the awful cost of sin. Tell me that His wrath burned hot against me, but the Savior came to save a sinner like me. Tell me how He drank the cup of the wrath of God and drained it to the dregs (Psalm 75:8). Remind me that there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Rom 8:1). I need it. I love it.

Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things to you is no trouble to me and is safe for you.
Phil 3:1
I’m gonna tell you the gospel again. I know you’ve heard it. I know you’ve heard it from me even. But I’m still gonna remind you. Why? Because you need it. You need to be reminded. I know you’re a Christian. I know that you’ve already repented and believed this gospel, but I’m gonna share it again.
You have not thought deeply enough about Christ. You have not plumbed the depths of “unsearchable riches” (Eph 3:8). You have not figured out the love of Christ “that surpasses knowledge” (Eph 3:19). So I’m gonna tell you the gospel again. I will remind you of how He died for sinners. I will remind you that He rose in victory on the third day. I will remind you that He now sits at the right hand of God, reigning as King forever, ready to receive all who trust in Him.
You are too prone to forget. The matter of first importance (1 Cor 15:3) is sometimes back of mind (or even out of mind). You can get busy. You can get distracted. You can get sleepy. But I’m here to tell you the gospel again. I want to wake you up to the reality of sins forgiven. I don’t want you to be shortsighted, forgetting that you were cleansed from your former sins (2 Peter 1:9). I don’t want you to be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. So I’m going to encourage and exhort you through the death, burial, and resurrection of our Lord.
And yes. Even you, the Christian, need to hear the gospel again. This is the message that saves you, sanctifies you, strengthens you, and sustains you.
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The grave duty of the magistrate was not to be taken lightly nor administered flippantly, nor was executed with exaggerated eschatological expectancy. Prudence and patience should guide the magistrate here, for the good of the church and commonwealth, not personal prejudice or private gain. Taking “care of God’s glory” and the preservation of religion and civil peace is the point. And this by removing “the external impediments of divine Worship or of Ecclesiasticall Peace,” which includes erroneous propagation and false worship. 

A few months ago, Jonathan Leeman debated Brad Littlejohn at Colorado Christian University on “Religious Liberty and the Common Good.” What the confrontation really amounted to was a question of the coercive power of civil authorities in religious matters. It is worth the watch. (The edited remarks from Leeman and Littlejohn were published here at American Reformer.)
In the course of the debate, Leeman fairly dubbed Littlejohn a “First Tabularian.” That is, a proponent of the magistrate’s duty to take note of and enforce the first table of the Decalogue, not merely the second. Littlejohn embraced and defended that decidedly traditional position ably. Leeman, self-professedly representing a Baptist position, nevertheless demurred.
This, it seems to me, is the fundamental divide within American Protestantism on this question. Will it be the Baptist position or the Magisterial one?
Per usual, someone else in our Protestant past has already addressed the question at hand. In this case, multiple persons, but we will take up just one: George Gillespie (1613-1648) who was unarguably conventional within the stream of historic Protestantism on the question at hand but, perhaps, best at expressing it.
The central focus of Gillespie’s Wholesome Severity (1645) was “Whether Christian Judges may lawfully punish Hereticks.” More directly, this introductory inquiry implied a more fundamental question:
The plaine English of the question is this: whether the Christian Magistrate be keeper of both Tables: whether he ought to suppresse his own enemies, but not Gods enemies, and preserve his own ordinances, but not Christ’s Ordinances from violation. Whether the troublers of Israel may be troubled. Whether the wilde boars and beasts of the forest must have leave to break down the hedges of the lord’s vineyard; and whether ravening wolves in sheeps clothing must be permitted to converse freely in the flock of Christ.
Were heresy and schism really to be admitted to society “under the name of tender consciences” like a “pestilence or a Gangrene”? (Published in 1645, Gillespie’s Severity could not here have been referencing Thomas Edwards’ (1599-1647) infamous and massive Gangraena (1646), but the terminological overlap is worth noting— Gillespie was decidedly more gracious in his presentation than Edwards.)
Gillespie’s entire purpose is to “vindicate the lawfull, yea necessary use of the coercive power of the Christian Magistrate in suppressing and punishing hereticks and sectaries.”
Gillespie was self-consciously responding to Baptists, viz., Christopher Blackwood (1604-1670), a Baptist in Ireland, and his Storming of Antichrist in his two Last and Strongest Garrisons (1644), which railed against infant baptism on conscientious grounds; and Roger Williams’ (1603-1683) The Bloody Tenent of Persecution (1644), which needs no introduction; and also, William Walwyn’s (1600-1681) The compassionate Samaritane (1644). (A compatriot of John Lilburne and other undesirables, Walwyn appears to have been as much a rabble rouser as Williams.)
To this end, Gillespie distinguished himself from two alternative views.
First, the opinion of “the Papists.” Their position was that all heretics who, following notice and instruction, “persist in their error, are to be without mercy put to death.” The second view was that of Baptists, viz., that no heretics or sectarians should endure any punishment but should be granted “liberty and toleration.” Gillespie finds both extremes wanting.
The third way, if you will, was Gillespie’s. The magistrate possesses and ought to exercise coercive power in suppressing heresy and schismatics with a level of discrepancy, discrimination, and prudence. That is, according to “the nature and degree of the error, schism, obstinacy, and danger of seducing others” presented by the heresy or blasphemy in view. Gentility in the execution of this duty cannot be neglected. Its application is not wanton or indiscriminate. The goal is not the “building of Zion with bloud.” For “the servant of the Lord must not strive; but be gentle unto all men.” Gillespie insisted that it was his “soul’s desire that the secular coercive power may be put forth upon those only who can by no other means be reclaimed, & who can be no longer spared without a visible rupture in the Church, and the manifest danger of seducing and misleading many souls.” Neither should adiaphora be coercively chastised. The grave duty of the magistrate was not to be taken lightly nor administered flippantly, nor was executed with exaggerated eschatological expectancy. Prudence and patience should guide the magistrate here, for the good of the church and commonwealth, not personal prejudice or private gain. Taking “care of God’s glory” and the preservation of religion and civil peace is the point. And this by removing “the external impediments of divine Worship or of Ecclesiasticall Peace,” which includes erroneous propagation and false worship.
This, says Gillespie, was the consensus Protestant opinion expressed by Theodore Beza and John Calvin, Wolfgang Musculus and Heinrich Bullinger, Martin Bucer and Johannes Brenz, and the Helvetic, French, Saxon, and Belgic Confessions. Of course, Gillespie refers to Scripture as well for support, Exodus and Deuteronomy, in particular.
But is the New Testament magistrate bound by the same standard as that of the Old regarding heretics, violators of the first table? Indeed, they are, and Gillespie marshals Johannes Piscator’s commentary on Exodus to demonstrate that the Christian magistrate is “obliged to those things in the Judiciall law which are unchangeable, & common to all Nations: but not to those things which are mutable, or proper to the Jewish Republike,” for these are “laws concerning Morall trespasses.” These are perennial things which include blasphemy and heresy against the very source of the governing power, God himself.
From Scripture, we know that God intended the perpetuation of the moral law imbedded in and undergirding the law of Moses by the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5) which vindicated the judicial and moral law against the false traditions of the Pharisees and Sadducees.
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