The Highway Forums General Discussion Open Forum At what point?

Hi Pilgrim,

You wrote,
"On the surface, at least, one could conclude that only a 'Christian' nation should be defended by Christians; where there is an 'established religion' (national and Christian) and the 'civil courts' administer justice from Christian law; whatever that might be. Would that be an accurate, albeit simple summation of your view? And directly related, could this be accurately understood to be that of Theonomic Reconstructionism for the most part?"

Honestly, I don't know a whole lot about Theonomic Reconstructionism and have never found any of the "Theonomist" authors interesting enough to pick up (except Bahnsen on apologetics - never theonomy, though). That being said, it is difficult for me to answer whether or not I could accurately be understood to be holding to a position that could justly be considered Theonomic Reconstructionism (in essence).

Some of the complexities that accompany this whole subject of civil government can be among the most difficult of any in Christian ethics. With that in mind, I'm a simpleton. I believe that God's moral and perpetual commands are not optional for us to obey. They are required of us all. As such, when a man becomes a civil ruler, I don't think hit is at all reasonable to assume that he can permit those over whom he rules to do what God prohibits them to do (not if he is a subject of God). I know, for example, that if I were a legislator, it would be conscious-killing for me to legalize what God has prohibited (i.e., murder - abortion; fornication and lust - pornography; gross idolatry - the practice of Islam; etc.). Furthermore, this concern of mine is only confirmed when I see clearly in the Old Testament that God required those to whom He gave His law (the Jews) to civilly enforce its requirements. Now, if I know anything about Theonomists, they would say that the explicit punishments, etc., must be enforced today as well. I don't agree. Times and circumstances may call for more or less severe punishments in certain cases. Furthermore, I have no problem seeing our government use something other than stones to execute homosexuals (as long as I see them executed).

That being said, an established church does make sense to me, so I support the idea as far as I understand it. My concern, however, is not what can we defend so much as what can we obviously not defend? I think the "right" to abort the unborn, "marry" homo's, "worship" allah (that false god), etc., is beyond defensible, especially in light of the fact that our nation is not unaware of God's word. We aren't Pagan Rome - we're worse: we're Apostate America.

For what its worth, everything that I'm saying here was understood and taught by Westminster Divines and included in various forms in their writings and the Westminster standards (if we include the covenants, and the original chapter on civil magistracy). Accordingly, I highly doubt that I am rightly considered a theonomist - I would more properly be considered a covenanter in my understanding of civil gov't.

Sincerely,
John P.