It was appropriate that in the Old Testament order there was
a certain earthly glory and indeed like Abraham we are 'wealthy' pilgrims. But
wealth and riches have to be understood in spiritual terms which Proverbs (ironically)
defines as spiritual wisdom, something the New Testament elaborates upon. Once
again I say ironic because the proponents of Christo-capitalism heavily rely on
Proverbs to make their fiscal case but never see the questions in light of the
New Testament and actually ignore the foundational concepts regarding wealth
that are laid out in the early chapters.
And yet even the earthly glory seen in the Old Testament was
demonstrative of that failed order. The types and symbols could not save. God's
Kingdom wasn't reducible to a strip of Levantine coastline which Abraham was
never actually able to inherit. God's Kingdom wasn't reducible to an earthly
albeit splendid Temple complex. And while Solomon was a type of Christ as were
all the kings, his glory grew dim, couldn't realise the actual Kingdom and ultimately
failed... as Moses also failed to enter the Promised Land. There are powerful redemptive
lessons to be gleaned from the Old Testament but these are all lost and twisted
by the Sacralist hermeneutic that confuses Kingdom with non-covenantal profane society
and Christian piety with cultural attainment and success, that refuses to
understand these types and symbols as related to Christ.
There are always levels and gradations to this error, some
forms straying from the Bible more than others. But just because someone like Dallas
Statement-proponent John MacArthur, Albert Mohler or ES Williams aren't as far
removed from the theology of the New Testament as say Chilton, Robbins, Rushdoony
or Charles Colson doesn't mean they're standing on solid Biblical ground. They
most certainly are not.
These schools in mis-defining and misunderstanding the
Kingdom as being temporal and earthly in nature are caught in a cycle of errors
as they seek to realise the Kingdom through socio-political and cultural
endeavours. They fall right into the traps that we're warned against in the New
Testament itself... the traps regarding riches and power. In other words their
misguided principles utterly destroy their understanding of ethics. This plays
out in their views of things like money, law, nationalism and war. The Church
is taken off course into a struggle not for spiritual truth and the Kingdom of
Heaven but for the mastery of the Earth. The ironic and even tragic end result
is that the world transforms the Church and the Church that stands in a
position of cultural and political power and believes itself victorious is in
fact revealed to be a counterfeit, a pseudo-Zion as it were. Once again I quote
Meredith Kline:
"Latent in the Apocalyptic
symbolism is an even more direct contradiction of dominion theology's
postmillennial eschatology. The melding of church with the state and its
coercive power, the arrangement which theonomic reconstructionism regards as the
kingdom ideal to be attained during the millennium, is precisely what is
anathematized in the Apocalypse as the harlot-Babylon church, the monstrous
perversion of the true church."
God Heaven and Har Magedon, pp.186
Again, Williams, MacArthur and Robbins may not view
themselves as advocates of a political Christianity or postmillennialism and
may even warn against these things to some degree. Nevertheless their
understanding of these issues demonstrates that they're not as far removed from
their socially minded theological opponents as they pretend. In fact it's
largely a case of the pot calling the kettle black. They don't believe the
Kingdom is realised through political action but their promotion of a certain
Right-wing socio-political platform as being reflective of Biblical (or Kingdom)
principles is more or less the same thing. Their defense of the Western order,
of the status quo (as it were) is a type of activism or at the very least
advocacy. They are promoters and campaigners for the banking and finance system
and a host of historical-patriotic narratives about war, justice and especially
the Anglo-American West. They have particular views of law and of history that
lead them to aggressively promote certain ideas and to equate them with
Biblical doctrine. Their understandings are not grounded in grass roots
populism and the protests of the common working man marching in the street.
Rather, they promote Wall Street, the Pentagon, the American and British
Empires, the West (and thus Western Imperialism) in general terms, and a triumphalist
reading of history that glories in the world that existed in the late 19th
century and all the 'possibilities' it held.
This is deeply immoral and contrary to New Testament ethics
and reflects the deep and cancerous shifts in thinking that took place in the
days of Constantine and have continued to plague 'the Church' since that time.
The Magisterial Reformation did nothing to correct this erroneous impulse and
while some in the Evangelical tradition came to a better understanding in the
19th century, a combination of social forces and aggressive teaching
on the part of misguided (and in other cases blatantly false) teachers has
aggressively pulled even these groups back into the Sacralist camp.
In addition to advocating a type of Prosperity Gospel,
Robbins (and thus Lausanne critic ES Williams) has embraced an ethic which
blinds him to certain realities regarding history. Robbins glories in what
ought to be a source of shame and he demonstrates either an ignorance or a
willing blindness to understand the nature of Western power as expressed
through colonialism, banking and industrial capitalism. Empire is theft and
murder and much of it was (and is) rooted in racist assumptions. The legacy is
complicated by the fact that some nations have seemingly benefitted from
Western contact. And yet all too often the tendency is to focus only on the
evils or on the benefits. The truth is of course far more complicated but I
will say that whatever benefits might have arrived in the form of law,
education, technology and the like arrived through ethically dubious means. In
other words some good might have come, but it was in spite of the evil actions,
deeds and ideas which brought it. Robbins without realising it endorses a 'do
evil that good may come' ethic, and reveals just how far removed he is from
Biblical thought in that he can't see what he's advocating is not Biblical but a
reflection of Enlightenment philosophy... and is in fact evil.
His claims of prosperity are both twisted and laughable.
There certainly has been a great deal of prosperity for the few. Others have
enjoyed a certain level of prosperity but again their success comes (at times)
with a great price. Robbins and indeed all libertarian thinkers would decry all
zero-sum arguments with regard to economics. They focus on wealth-creation even
while failing (or refusing) to understand the limitations of resources and
geography and the great strains put on these things by population. In addition
the cultural fallout from the capitalist economic model is probably beyond
quantification. And while they would view capitalist cultural transformation to
be in keeping with Christianisation, the truth is far different.
Their manipulation of these debates is frankly dishonest and
shameful and I've addressed some of them elsewhere. To suggest (as some corrupt
teachers and lobbyists have) that the world's population could fit comfortably
in Texas is a statement of such gross ignorance that's it hard to know where to
begin or if such silliness is even worthy of comment. To treat these questions
in purely quantitative or mathematical categories is not only misleading, I am
baffled that these folks would think such materialist-oriented arguments to be
Christian.
The prosperity of the few has amplified the suffering of the
many and while there is unprecedented prosperity in our age, there is also
unparalleled suffering and poverty that is pushing the world to the breaking
point. This cycle of polarised wealth and poverty also generates waste of
resources, stokes war and creates ethical dilemmas that defy any earthly
solution. The world is broken but to champion an unjust and unethical system of
socio-economics is morally bankrupt, offensive and at complete odds with the
ethics of the New Testament.
Robbins would glory in the power of America and he spent much
of his wayward and wasted life in promoting it and its myths. But when a
society comprises but 5% of the global population and yet controls 50% of the
wealth and uses 25% of the world's resources what we have is not a godly order
but a gluttonous and covetous one, and one that will kill to maintain its
dominance. And thus to defend that very status quo it must control markets, and
manipulate the economics and politics of other countries in order to secure
these resources and make sure others don't get them. This type of society lives
on war as indeed the American Empire is a veritable modern Assyria, a warfare
state. The American economy is deeply rooted in the war machine and would
quickly collapse were it to be scaled back.
The prosperity of the wealthy class is deeply tied to this
war machine and its vast archipelago of industry, weapons, finance and politics.
This society is godless and is in fact profoundly anti-Christian... and yet
Robbins praises this bestial abomination as 'obedient' and thinks its power is
something to glory in, a proof of the mandate of heaven, an outworking of
Protestantism and his own rather puerile and philosophically lame grasp of
Divine Revelation, Biblical doctrine and in particular the Clarkian understanding
of Justification by Faith Alone.
It is Robbins and those who echo his thought that live in a
land of myth and sadly they cover up (and give approval to) the crimes and
great evils of the West and thus are unable to draw the connections between
past and present. Their contemporary commentaries regarding the decline of the
Western social order are shallow, blind and utterly lacking in their grasp of
what has happened and how this trajectory came about. They're caught on a
hamster wheel and cannot see that the very ideas they advocate led to the
individualism, avarice and decadence that have brought about the present
debauched and sodomitical social order that we live in. They are quite
literally blind guides. This cannot be understated, even though it brings this
author little joy in pointing it out.
They decry the social activism of Lausanne and the Social
Justice movement within Evangelicalism but in promoting Wall Street, advocating
for war, engaging in historical propaganda, labouring alongside activist
think-tanks like Heritage, holding special 'worship' services for military and
police and whitewashing the evils of the past and present social order, they
are exposed as being activists of the
same stripe. Their style is bourgeois, but they cannot pretend that they
haven't confused the Kingdom with success in this present evil age. If Robbins
thinks the West has been godly and that its power and global domination are a
result of Biblical obedience I can only say that I pity the man. He clearly
knew nothing of the New Testament Gospel and the Christ of Robbins was not the
Christ of Scripture but rather a figment of his own perverse imagination and
seared conscience. The statement quoted above by Williams is stunning, a
terrible legacy and an indictment of all that Robbins stood for.
And yet ES Williams has chosen to marshal such statements in
his criticism of Lausanne and thus once again while there is much to criticise
with regard to Graham, Stott and their ecumenical worldly programme, the
criticisms levied by such as Williams are in the end just as destructive and
erroneous. And as suggested throughout the course of this essay, this dynamic
almost exactly parallels the present Social Justice controversy which has so
polarised American Evangelical and Confessional circles.
What Williams defends as the Biblical work ethic is in fact
not Biblical at all and in many cases provides a cover for rapacious wealth
accumulation. It is often a case of the industrial age and industrial society
judging the pre-industrial world. And while Williams might prefer to think of
the poor as being lazy in both their work habits and their thinking, the core
of the so called Protestant Work Ethic is rooted in avarice. Industrialisation
was built upon it. From the land clearances, to resource acquisition to cheap and
exploitative labour, the movement while impressive in worldly terms is a
monument to greed. This will illicit scoffs by opposition readers who have made
it to this point. However I stand by the statement. Under the guise of
manipulated concepts such as stewardship and efficiency the so-called 'ethic'
is rooted in a dehumanised concept of personhood, family and time. In the name
of profit, good organisation, duty and proper order the working man is deprived
of not only his dignity and time but even his humanity. The economic policies
and outlooks championed here by Williams have in fact fostered a godless social
order and have led to the destruction of the family. Again the irony here is
almost too thick to appreciate as one considers the way in which Christian
Sacralists lament the downfall of the family, even while promoting the
socio-political order that has accelerated this very reality. Money is put over
people. Just wages, which from a Christian perspective are wages that allow a
man to support his family, are denied. An array of extra-Biblical
philosophically derived ideas concerning the market, its forces, the value of
labour, the reward due to those who 'risk' their money and yes, rank usury
guide the thinking.
To counter these unfortunate and uncomfortable realities, the
Capitalist Right continues to employ a veritable army of 'scholars' and
academics to promote the system and blame its deficiencies on the Left and on the
programmes and legislation it wishes to eradicate.
Stott's descendants see this greater picture and would remedy
it but sadly their solutions are still rooted in the same order and in the same
flawed view of the Kingdom and of Biblical anthropology. Men are lazy but men
are also corrupt. Men lie and steal and will manipulate the market for the sake
of gain. There are no real solutions to these questions. The coin is after all
Caesar's and therefore is of little interest to us.
But this acknowledgement of the world's brokenness and the
folly of Lausanne is a far cry from the Right-wing activism and advocacy of
Williams, Robbins and the many more who echo their arguments.
While the Scriptures do employ wealth typology in the Old
Testament order the overwhelming assessment of wealth is negative. The rich are
consistently condemned and often in emphatic terms. The New Testament's pilgrim
ethic only amplifies this and sounds many warnings concerning the dangers of
wealth and the traps of worldliness. We are told to lay up our treasures in
heaven, to focus on heaven and treat this world as that which is passing away. Stott
and Lausanne don't escape this condemnation either. The answer isn't largesse
and programmes. The answer is for men to change which can only come about with
the Gospel. And yet since the Bible doesn't teach Postmillennial Triumphalism
we understand the way is narrow and there are few that are saved. A global
fix-it programme is not on the table. Lausanne is wrong. Its efforts are
misguided and even distracting. We as the Church should work to aid the poor
but not through a programme of ecumenicism and political activism.
And yet the approach taken by Williams is even worse. His
solution is to glory in the West, its power, its imperialism and its domination
of the Earth... to champion its pseudo-Christianity and yet then pretend that
the Church isn't engaged in cultural renewal or sacralisation, that the Church
is only concerned with the gospel. Individuals can build so-called Christian
empires, accumulate wealth and wage wars in its name but just make sure the
Church isn't 'officially' advocating the programme. That's not very honest, is
it?
Lausanne has promoted a false ecumenical agenda and is
certainly guilty of unbiblical thought and practice. Williams is right to
accuse the movement of downgrading Scripture and its authority.
Yet it must be said that Dominionism whether Right, Left or
Centre is inherently a driver of ecumenicism. By focusing on socio-political
concerns it tends to bring together groups as diverse as Confessional
Protestants and Roman Catholics let alone Evangelicals. By confusing Christian
and Kingdom with 'Christianised' culture, many groups that would be otherwise viewed
as theologically and gospel-dubious are nevertheless embraced as 'brethren' in
the fight, as Christians at least in that broader (if extra-Biblical) sense.
Hence you'll find conservative Confessionalists championing the likes of
Charlemagne and knight-Crusaders alongside figures like George Washington and
Winston Churchill, John Locke and Adam Smith. Even figures like George Patton,
Christopher Columbus and increasingly some of the popes are being held in
esteem. And of course many of today's Evangelicals, New Calvinists and
Confessionalists continue to gravitate toward Rome and express admiration for
its culture warriors and in some cases a distinct 'kinship' is expressed.
Lausanne is engaged in a false political activism and has a
false view of economics and the Christian approach to such questions. And yet
Williams advocates positions just as erroneous even if they fall on another
side of the spectrum. The equation of capitalism and empire with Christianity
opens up just as many dark ethical corridors as does any embrace of
quasi-Marxist or Liberation thought on the part of those engaged in 'social
justice' politics. Conservatives are incredulous that professing Christians
would embrace something like Liberation Theology. They should be just as
incredulous that Christians would embrace Capitalism and advocate for the
policies and wars of the Western order. Both phenomena should be considered
scandalous.
Lausanne has played fast and loose with the Scriptures and
has embraced ideas that lead to their degradation. But Williams has also
rejected Biblical ethics and by relying on the likes of Chilton, Robbins and
others has (in a manner akin to theological liberalism) philosophically
supplanted the Scriptures, their doctrines and their ethics.
Lausanne is a disease that needs to be exposed and
eradicated. However, Williams would cure this disease with yet another disease
just as perilous and ultimately just as fatal. The two camps are not as distant
as they might think. Their hermeneutics are similar but operate from different
starting points. Both result in the same perverted and deformed understandings
of the Kingdom and the role the Church is to play in building it. Both camps
have embarked on the paths of heresy.
The practical danger all too often is revealed in the mixed
nature of such platforms. Much that Williams says about Lausanne is right and
many of his critiques are valid and yet his errors outweigh any good he might
have to offer. Likewise much that the advocates of Lausanne argue for with
regard to wealth is worthy of consideration. The critiques of the present
social order and its foundations are needed. It is an un-Christian social
system and needs to be critiqued, all the more as many (such as the late John
Robbins) have reckoned it an expression of Biblical Christianity. And yet their
solutions are in the end something less than Scriptural and likewise distract
the Church and run the risk of confusing the Kingdom with political struggle.
The answer is to truly apply the Scripture and follow those roads
wherever they may lead... even if it leads to the wilderness and a rejection of
not only the present order but the foundations it was built upon. Neither
Lausanne nor its critics as represented here by Williams reflect the Kingdom of
Christ, let alone the pilgrim identity and ethics it produces. Williams has
written a helpful book but it falls short and cannot be recommended.
See also: