Backward, Christian Soldiers?

Dr. Gary North always had a knack for book titles. He suggested Last Days Madness for my first book on Bible prophecy. James Jordan suggested The Reduction of Christianity as American Vision’s response to Dave Hunt’s The Seduction of Christianity, which Peter J. Leithart and I wrote. Dr. North and I debated Dave Hunt and Thomas Ice in 1988.

The Reduction of Christianity

Christian author Dave Hunt was unusually consistent about his earthly pessimism, even to the point of denying that Jesus’ reign on earth will be a manifestation of the kingdom of God. He spells out in no uncertain terms just what his radical brand of dispensationalism necessarily implies. In short, Hunt argues that the plan of God points only to the defeat of His Church in history, that Satan got the upper hand in Eden. In The Reduction of Christianity, DeMar and Leithart strongly disagree and present the biblical case against Hunt’s pessimism and defeatism in clear exegetical terms.

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Most Christians know the hymn “Onward Christian Soldiers” and the line “marching as to war,” based on 2 Timothy 2:3: “Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.” Paul was not advocating taking up physical weapons because “the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses” (2 Cor. 10:4). While Christians do not use suits of armor and swords (Eph. 6:10-18), it’s necessary to understand that the devil’s schemes have real-world consequences.

Paul understood this; he saw it in action in his own life. He acted when some Romans beat him. He played the Roman citizen card and demanded an apology (Acts 16). He knew the law and applied it when he could. He did not call for an uprising. Many Jews tried this in what has become known as “The Jewish-Roman War” (AD 66-73), culminating in the siege of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Second Temple in AD 70 under the command of Titus and Vespasian, with the final Roman victory at Masada in 73. The Bar Kokhba Revolt (132-136) led to the banning of Jews from Jerusalem and resulted in the province being renamed Syria Palaestina.

The question is, “How should Christians respond?” The following is from Dr. North’s Introduction to Backward, Christian Soldiers:

Perfect victory over the effects of sin throughout the universe comes only on the day of judgment. But progressive victory over sin in the individual’s life can and should be mirrored in the progressive victory over the effects of sin in the society. This is the message of Deuteronomy 8 and 28:1-14.

Christians haven’t taken seriously this vision of victory since the 1870’s. They have become convinced that the best we can hope for is individual sanctification. They have rejected the concept of social sanctification. What is personal sanctification, anyway? It is the progressive conformity of a person’s life to the standards set forth by the Bible for ethics. It means becoming conformed to the perfect humanity of Christ. (It never means becoming conformed to His divinity; men do not evolve into God.) Sanctification is a process of being set apart from the world of sin and ethical rebellion—again, not perfectly, in time and on earth, but progressively. Regenerate men become “meat eaters” rather than “milk drinkers” (I Cor. 3:2).

Then what is social sanctification? It parallels personal sanctification. As godly people begin to restructure their behavior in terms of what the Bible requires, the world about them begins to change. They serve as leavening influences in the whole culture. As more converts are added to the rolls of the churches, and as these converts begin to conform their lives to the Bible’s standards for external behavior, all of society is progressively sanctified—set apart by God for His glory, just as He set apart Israel in Old Testament times (pp. ix-x).

In chapter one of Backward, Christian Soldiers, Dr. North tells this story that first appeared in 1974 in the now-defunct magazine, Applied Christianity.

In 1974, I sent the manuscript of Foundations of Christian Scholarship to a Christian publishing firm in Britain [I’m guessing it was The Banner of Truth Trust: GD]. The book’s essays challenge the established secular presuppositions of many academic disciplines: economics, sociology, psychology, education, philosophy, political science, and even mathematics. The writers all had advanced degrees, and most held the Ph.D. The letter of rejection explained that the publishing organization “has been generally very wary about involving itself in this field. There is no one of any real competence to get involved in these matters of economics, sociology, etc. [presumably, he means nobody associated with his publishing firm: GN] and it would be sticking our neck out with no one able to answer the charges that might be made. We see the first concern to address ourselves to the prevailing piety in worship, prayer and preaching… (pp. 2-3).

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Why should critiques of modern secularism be left to neo-orthodox scholars like the theologian Langdon Gilkey, whose book, Maker of Heaven and Earth (at least in the first six chapters), was for years the best book available on the implications of the doctrine of God’s creation—something Gilkey does not even believe in its historic form? Why was it left to him to remind Christians that without the sure foundation of the belief in the creation, modern science could never have arisen? He, not the local pastor, has announced: “The optimism and buoyancy of Western culture is more an effect of the idea of the good creation than its cause” (pp. 5-6).

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Christians believe today that they can safely retreat into a zone of social impotence and therefore social irresponsibility, just as they have done for a century. But with the acids of relativism and nihilism eroding the foundations of secularism—the faith which has supported the Western world since at least 1900—the social buffers are disappearing. Drugs, pornography, lawlessness, economic disruption, witchcraft, random murders, and all the rest of secularism’s new children no longer respect the doors of the churches the way they used to. Like Joab, contemporary Christians are discovering that the horns of the altar no longer protect them from destruction (I Kings 2:28-34). They can no longer be “rice Christians,”[1] the beneficiaries of endless fruits of a once-Christian culture (p. 7).

The warnings about where we are today have been going on for a long time. For decades, Christians were told that the Bible applied to every area of life. “Yet the moment Christians discover answers in the Bible to the many problems of life that lie outside the narrow confines of the institutional church, they feel impotent and unqualified to speak.”

Theonomy: An Informed Response

Christendom is a civilization—the kingdom of God in history—that is governed in every area, every nook and cranny, by God: a society whose lawfully anointed rulers govern in terms of God’s revealed law. In this view, God is not in retirement or on vacation; He is a King who has delegated to His officers the authority to exercise command. There are three covenantal institutions: family, church, and state. To deny that God’s covenant law applies to civil government in New Testament times is necessarily to abandon the ideal of Christendom.

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When I became a Christian in 1973 and went to seminary, we were told that the Bible applied to every area of life, until Dr. Greg Bahnsen taught that principle in terms of God’s law. In the first three chapters of Theonomy: An Informed Response, I cover and relate my experiences at Reformed Theological Seminary and the writings of worldview thinkers.

[1] A person who nominally adopts Christianity not out of genuine spiritual belief, but to receive material benefits, food, medical aid, or social protection. “The concept dates back centuries, with early recorded usage in the late 17th century (such as by William Dampier in 1689 observing conversions aided by distributions of rice). During the 19th-century colonial era in Asia (including China and India), Western missionaries often provided famine relief, education, and healthcare to impoverished or caste-oppressed communities, leading critics to label the resulting converts transactionally.”

American Vision’s mission is to Restore America to its Biblical Foundation—from Genesis to Revelation. American Vision (AV) has been at the heart of worldview study since 1978, providing resources to exhort Christian families and individuals to live by a Biblically based worldview. Visit www.AmericanVision.org for more information, content and resources