The Federalist Manifesto (Pt. 2): Voices from the Past
A New Political Vision for Protestantism
If you feel compelled, please respond to this post with feedback, criticism, or suggested reading. This is part 2 of a larger series of essays I am writing. I will release some of those essays in the following weeks/months when they are completed. You can subscribe to this Substack to receive these essays in your inbox.
The dynamics previously discussed have been expressed and refuted by other, more notable writers than myself, and I am uninterested in rehearsing the reasons for the widespread pastoral reticence—often bordering on timidity—that has characterized Evangelical engagement with politics over the past century. My aim over the past several years has been to construct a Biblically faithful political philosophy—one that is both functional in practice and rooted in the visions and writings of the American Founding Fathers. Few theologians or pastors in recent decades have undertaken this task within the broader Evangelical movement—a sad reality that might lead one to conclude that the topic is unimportant. This could not be further from the truth. Evangelical history gives much testimony and argumentation for a rigorous engagement in politics. The record itself offers abundant examples, though a deeper reading of certain men would benefit most American Christians today far more than any summary I could provide.
Take Charles Spurgeon for example, known as the “Prince of Preachers” and one of the best theological minds God has granted to the Church. Spurgeon was not only convinced that political thought belonged in the minds of Christians, but he was sure that Christianity belonged in the political halls of Congress, Parliament, and the like. Spurgeon famously said,
“I long for the day when the precepts of the Christian religion shall be the rule among all classes of men, in all transactions! I often hear it said, ‘Do not bring religion into politics.’ This is precisely where it ought to be brought, and set there in the face of all men as on a candlestick! I would have the Cabinet and the members of Parliament do the work of the nation as before the Lord, and I would have the nation, either in making war or peace, consider the matter by the light of righteousness. We are to deal with other nations about this or that upon the principles of the New Testament. I thank God that I have lived to see the attempt made in one or two instances, and I pray that the principle may become dominant and permanent! We have had enough of clever men without consciences—let us now see what honest, God-fearing men will do!”
This is simply one small example of the language of Charles Spurgeon on the matters of politics and governance, but Spurgeon does not pull any punches. It is his position that politics and theology are inherently intertwined and that Christianity belongs in the political conversation not just as a another perspective but as the guiding light of nations and governments. Spurgeon’s rhetoric would no doubt be seen in the modern age as “coercive” and some would likely label him, on the basis of this quote, as a Christian Nationalist. Of course, Charles Spurgeon is not a Christian Nationalist in the modern sense – rather he is a Christian who believes that all areas of life are to be governed by his Christian convictions – in other words, he is a consistent Christian. The resolute passivity of the modern age has so dominated the political ethos in Evangelical circles that merely stating or desiring that Christianity be the guiding force for political and governmental change would end in being labeled as an extremist Christian Nationalist. But this label lacks legitimacy.
In the years after Charles Spurgeon, other men followed in his convictional footsteps. Men like J. Gresham Machen, the founder of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church and Westminster Theological Seminary, had a similar outlook on politics as Spurgeon. He argued that Christians must be active in the political realm – that activity being a further expression of Christian conviction and true doctrine. His polemics related to federal education are ample for this discussion,
“A public-school system, if it means the providing of free education for those who desire it, is a noteworthy and beneficent achievement of modern times; but when once it becomes monopolistic it is the most perfect instrument for tyranny which has yet been devised. Freedom of thought in the middle ages was combated by the Inquisition, but the modern method is far more effective.”
Like Spurgeon, Machen did, in fact, discuss policy and governmental affairs. His interest in the governmental education system was perhaps the most important political conversation of his time. What children are taught and how children are taught was of significant importance to him as he saw that education – that is, the indoctrination of children – was something that could either be used to glorify God or to deter men from their ultimate telos. Of course, Machen was not the only Christian scholar who was seriously interested in the problems arising a century ago in education systems in the West.
C.S. Lewis, the famous Christian philosopher, wrote an entire book about education playing a role in the destruction of the human person. His book, The Abolition of Man, directly confronts the problems he saw in education and language. Machen and Lewis were both understanding of the fact that these issues are not only theological – though they are primarily theological – but that they are also political and philosophical. If a textbook is required reading for children and that textbook has a false philosophical framework that is anti-Christian, what is the Christian supposed to do about that? To do nothing when he has the electoral power to do something would be to enable, willingly, false ideologies that are contrary to the created order and the Creator Himself. This places the Christian into a peculiar situation in which he must use his faculties of reason to both construct an argument against the ideologies of evil and speak with conviction about those arguments so to convince his audience (whether that be his family, workplace, church, or Congress) of the truth. A passive way is not found in Spurgeon, Machen, or Lewis.
Lewis, in addition to his polemics on language and education, also warned of the philosophical dangers of relativism and postmodernism in The Abolition of Man. Lewis was so convinced of the comprehensive nature of Christian belief that he discussed many other political topics in other essays. For example, he discussed the significance and dangers of the welfare state saying,
“Is there any possibility of getting the super Welfare State’s honey and avoiding the sting? Let us make no mistake about the sting. The Swedish sadness is only a foretaste. To live his life in his own way, to call his house his castle, to enjoy the fruits of his own labour, to educate his children as his conscience directs, to save for their prosperity after his death—these are wishes deeply ingrained in civilised man. Their realization is almost as necessary to our virtues as to our happiness. From their total frustration disastrous results both moral and psychological might follow.”
Lewis saw clearly that the erosion of personal liberty and responsibility threatened both virtue and human happiness itself.
There are also the sincere convictions of G.K. Chesterton, who was outspoken both theologically and politically. He memorably warned: “Once abolish the God, and the government becomes the God.” This is one of many such sayings from Chesterton.
But perhaps the most notable name in recent history related to political thought and action was Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Bonhoeffer, for those who don’t know, was a German pastor and theologian in the midst of World War 2 and the rise of Hitler in Germany. He saw the Führer take control of the Church in Germany and replace the Crosses with swastikas. He saw the Bible reprinted and changed to fit the ideological dogmas of Nazism. He saw the church bend the knee to Hitler in order to save their own skin (while simultaneously losing their soul). It’s factually correct to say that what Bonhoeffer saw in Germany leading up to the second World War was very much similar to what we have seen in liberal churches across America in the modern age.
How so? There are countless examples. One being that in 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, many churches across the country saw it as akin to a fundamental doctrine of Christianity to pressure their congregants into injecting themselves with chemicals and to claim that this act of obedience to the liberal regime was one of Christian “love” and “mercy”. Those same people propped up a familiar face in Christian circles, Francis Collins, who was a self-proclaimed “Christian” and the director of the National Institute of Health. Collins was found to have been using aborted baby parts for “scientific research”.
To say the least, the Evangelical church stayed silent on this matter as did most of her proponents like Christianity Today and The Gospel Coalition who had both propped Collins up as an exemplary figure for years. This deafening silence is the same kind that Bonhoeffer was so familiar with as Hitler rose to power. It’s the silence that brought him to the understanding that the Church is meant to be the conscience of the State – not the other way around. And further, if the Church is without conscience, the State crumbles quickly.
Another example can be found in the church’s response to transgenderism and the rise in transhumanist ideology. It became the dogma of many churches to engage in what they called “gender hospitality” – that is, calling someone by their preferred pronouns – instead of telling them the truth about their sex and speaking to them in a way that would be in accordance with God’s created order. It was said by many that if a Christian refuses to call someone who is confused of their own sex by their preferred pronouns, they are not loving them and they are even becoming a “stumbling block” on their road to faith in Christ.
This absurd logic was refuted by a couple of brave warriors within the Evangelical church broadly (mostly women) but was never put to death. It became very obvious to me that this lie was embedded into the church culture when I was at church one Sunday and a group of millennials were discussing this very topic. There were about five or six of us talking and out of everyone, I was the only person who was adamant about being truthful and addressing people by their God-given sex. Mind you, this was at a church that was once called the “most conservative church” in my city. The group stood around making excuses about how hard it is to tell the truth and about how ineffective it is to tell the truth and about how much they “struggle” with telling the truth. But what is it that Elisabeth Elliot once said? “A whole lot of what we call ‘struggling’ is simply delayed obedience”. I digress.
These are only a handful of positions from a handful of men across the past two centuries who believed—explicitly or implicitly—that Christianity must touch all areas of life. They rejected any call to compartmentalize faith from public affairs. It is safe to say that these men, along with countless others through church history, would be outcasts in much of today’s Evangelical world—branded as “divisive,” “angry,” or “unhelpful” by many pastoral and intellectual leaders.
I am not primarily concerned here with explaining why this shift occurred. My purpose in citing these figures is simply to show that serious theological consideration of politics was the assumed norm for most Christians until relatively recent events changed the way in which Christians were told to think. To those immersed in the non-denominational ethos and the passive “third-wayism” that dominates much of modern Evangelicalism, this older vision may sound backward. To the theologians of old, such reticence would have been—at best—bewildering, and at worst, a tragic abdication.
From the early Church—whose members were persecuted not merely for private belief but for refusing to render ultimate allegiance to Caesar—down through the centuries, the lordship of Christ was proclaimed over every sphere of life. That lordship remains unchanged today. Yet a biblically faithful, constitutionally grounded, and practically functional political philosophy has yet to be widely articulated for the Protestant church to embrace and teach. Because of our chosen passivity toward politics, there is little to draw from contemporary evangelical thinkers on this front.
That said, what follows is my attempt to articulate and commend a better way forward—one aimed particularly at Protestant Christians in confessing, denominational traditions.
I will begin by attempting to show my aim in political philosophy and my definitions – that is, the definitions of the words I think are critical to a proper political philosophy. It’s my view that the aim of the government and any political movement ought to be the flourishing of the human person. What that means, specifically, would be summed up in what J.I. Packer called “the purpose of theology” in his book, The Heritage of Anglican Theology – that is, that man’s heart would be turned towards Christ and his affection be more and more in alignment with our Lords. Thus, the aim and goal of politics, government, and all other works and beliefs under the sun is to more fully know God and do His Will. The political endeavor should be to enhance man’s ability to precisely that end and to not incentivize the opposite.
Politics and Government are a means to an end; the end being union with Christ which is the flourishing of the human person. This means that we must throw off all of the modern prejudices against the Church and Christ as it relates to politics and government if we are to engage in a truly honest quest for political compentency. It has been the obsession of many modern Evangelical writers and thinkers to cast the whole of Christianity into many different parts rather than allowing for the comprehensive nature of Christianity to flourish in all areas of life.