The Great Commission of Matthew 28 is repeatedly invoked but with a Dominionist overlay that re-casts the passage in terms of a Christianisation that does not exist, that has no premise in the New Testament, is refuted by the New Testament, and in no way reflects Christ's imperative in the passage. He was exhorting His followers to make disciples of the nations – in other words the gospel message is not restricted to the Jewish nation but now goes out into the world and is open and available to all people – a point reiterated and reinforced by Pentecost and the Book of Acts. That offer did not include the Mosaic Law as Acts 15 makes clear.
Dominionists read the Great Commission as an imperative for
the Church to 'disciple' the nations in the sense of culture building,
legislation and a programme of Christianisation. This is a glaring case of
eisegesis and yet the Dominionist movement has made this flagrant error a
centerpiece, the basis of one of their foundational arguments. Seeking to
Christianize the nations, they blur and often obliterate the distinction
between Church and world, and effectively de-covenantalize both Old Testament
Law and New Testament identity. The severity of this error and its implications
cannot be overstated. The end result is not a transformed world but a degraded
and world-defined Church. This podcast with its flawed assumptions and wayward
reasoning typifies this process and represents the kind of confused ethics and
conflicting interests that result.
The podcast started to take some especially bad turns toward
the end as a Marxism is invoked – not the doctrines of Karl Marx, but the
language of red-baiting and the Right-wing delusion regarding the present
course of American society. Marxism is non-existent within the American
political spectrum, even the so-called Far or Progressive Left in congress –
figures like Sanders, Warren, and The Squad are all revealed to be pseudo-left
social democrats at best. In terms of global politics, they're basically
Centre-Left as none of them advocate even the most basic positions of Marxism
with regard to private property or the means of production. Once you look past
their antics and rhetoric it's clear enough that they support Wall Street and
the war machine – the core drivers of US imperialism. No one is calling for the
nationalization of Wall Street and its banking system as true communists would
– not even close. They are capitalists who in some cases hold to a more
pragmatic libertarianism when it comes to the 'rights' regime and yet have
enough sense to realize that without 'bread and circuses' the plebeian mob will
rise up and overthrow the order – not in the name of communism, but motivated
by simple rage. Even the late Theonomist Gary North (one of their own) admitted
that Marxism did not exist within the spectrum of American politics. Its invocation
is simply a dog-whistle a case of McCarthy-ite scare-tactics, a catch-all that
encompasses and erases nuance and shuts down discussion. It's also deceitful
and destructive to political discourse. North for his part spent a good part of
his life in Libertarian quarters – failing to grasp the contradictions in some
cases, and in others seemingly obscuring his true authoritarian thoughts and draconian
positions.
And finally there's a rather raw discussion regarding the
concerns of mammon. Owning a business (even what in many cases is reckoned a
'small' business) requires the ability to threaten suit, litigate, and the
commentators lament how difficult this is due to the costs of lawyers – a point
they also blame on regulation. Who can doubt the corruption that reigns within
the legal profession and the judiciary? And yet, when one starts to peel back
the layers one can understand why (to some degree) things are the way they are.
This is not to justify things as they stand but to simply argue that once again
it's a little more complicated than this roundtable seems able to grasp. It's
not government tyranny in terms of regulation but rather inherent
contradictions and conflicting interests at work within the American system –
and always the interests of money. There are also questions regarding the
complexity of law and the courts. The entire discussion regarding English
Common Law versus Roman Law represents yet another sidetrack and waste of time.
According to the New Testament, Christians shouldn't be suing people, calling
on the state to use violence (or its threat) to recover funds, to right wrongs
and the like. Sure, the lost world is going to chase after these things, but
we're not to. Christ says as much in the Sermon on the Mount. Let them worry
about their contracts and chasing down their coins and worrying about who stole
what and so forth. These are not New Testament concerns. If you can't build a
business without getting pulled into the world of litigation and the concerns
of finance – maybe as a Christian you should re-think what you're doing and reconsider
the scope of your pursuits. Pilgrims don't have legal standing in society, do
they not understand this? Obviously not.
Being second class citizens, and reckoned among the small and
insignificant people in society, as opposed to the 'movers and shakers' is
anathema to the Dominionism and its politically minded (and yet largely middle
class) ethos. But the salient question is – what does the New Testament actually
teach?
I found myself pitying these people and yet I can also get
angry as I think about how many Christians I know who get pulled into this sham
world and give all their time and energy to wrangling over the concerns of
mammon and questions concerning law or the US Constitution – even while
Scripture is neglected and the call to cross-bearing rejected. The Kingdom and
its calling are (I'm sorry to say) foreign to these folks and while they mean
well, they in fact mislead and wreak havoc.
Misappropriating verses from passages in Deuteronomy and
elsewhere and then combining them with misguided readings of legal and
political history, we are reminded of the troublers in Ephesus:
From which some having
swerved have turned aside unto vain jangling; Desiring to be teachers of the
law; understanding neither what they say, nor whereof they affirm.
To repeat what I have stated in previous writings – in this
case the quote is more specifically in reference to the question of Sabbath and
the Decalogue, but these topics are closely related to the larger question of
the Mosaic Law and its application to society in the context of the New
Covenant, and thus pertinent to this context:
Paul in 1 Timothy chapter 1 is not setting out a
Christian use of the Law or even more specifically the Decalogue. In fact his
vague and somewhat loose reference to it implies the point I'm making, that
under the New Covenant it is no longer active and/or applicable to those in
union with Christ. Divine Law nevertheless retains a function in terms of
condemning the world – but again, there's no specific mention of the Sabbath or
any of the so-called First Table commandments. Thus it's not the Decalogue per
se that Paul is appealing to but Law in general of which the Decalogue was a
contextual, typological, and covenantal expression – hence the parallels and
conceptual overlap.
The Law of God in the broadest sense condemns
the unbeliever but the Mosaic order (specifically) is not binding on
Christians. Lest this be completely misunderstood, we could state it this way –
The form of the Mosaic Law (including the Decalogue) is fulfilled and thus
annulled and yet that form revealed (in a specific typological context and for
a specific redemptive-historical purpose) a glimpse or reflection of a broader
substantive concept we can call God's Law, which still condemns the world and
convicts sin. The Sabbath was typological and temporary and as the New
Testament reveals was never about the hallowing of a twenty-four hour period.
That was part of the typological-pedagogical framework meant for the
pre-Incarnation, pre-Resurrection people of God and thus is no longer required.
With the author of Hebrews we can extrapolate warnings and lessons from its
context and form. In the end, the unbeliever's problem is not about a failure
to acknowledge and sanctify a twenty-four hour period within a heptadic cycle,
but rather their godlessness and failure to acknowledge God and order their
lives accordingly. Their problem is a lack of faith without which it is
impossible to please Him.
The kind of regulatory applications all too
often suggested within Theonomic debate represent the very kind of vain
jangling, idle, and meaningless speculation the apostle is condemning in 1
Timothy.
(See https://proto-protestantism.blogspot.com/2023/02/a-theonomic-critique-of-lee-irons.html)
Ultimately the podcast is tedious to listen to and not a little exasperating. But for those who want to understand the points being made here, it is instructive and certainly sobering as this type of thinking all but dominates today's milieu.