The Highway Forums General Discussion Open Forum King of Kings

The size of this book belies its value and usefulness to Christians who need to be disabused of Enlightenment notions of governmental neutrality in matters of religion and morality. If God charges civil magistrates to promote what is good and punish what is evil, then His definitions of good and evil must be employed to evaluate how well they are doing their jobs. The Christian Bible, which reveals the Christian religion, is the place where those definitions are found. James Baird demonstrates that this connection between God’s mandate and God’s standard necessitates the argument for which he contends—that ‘government must promote Christianity as the only true religion.’ That thesis can understandably give pause to an old Baptist heart like mine. However, as Baird lays out his case, mining the riches of historic, Protestant political theology in the process, he successfully allays my fears and strengthens my understanding of and appreciation for both the Bible’s teachings on civil government and the constitutional republic we have in the United States. This book does not confuse church and state but sees both under the lordship of Jesus Christ with peculiar responsibilities assigned by Him. Thus, by ‘promote,’ he does not mean that the government has the responsibility to fulfill the duties of the church. Rather, he argues—rightly in my estimation—that the ‘common good’ which government must seek to cultivate can only be found in the Christianity revealed by the one, true God. This book will be a great help to anyone who wants to think carefully about religion and politics. —Tom Ascol, President, Founders Ministries

Romans of course was written by Paul, when Israel was being ruled by Rome. Yet, the same principle holds true.

America in particular, was built upon biblical principles, that come from the 10 Commannds.

Yet in recent years, government has tried to be neutral when in actuality neutrality is a myth.

I believe this was explained more in the podcast.

Tom

Calvinism, Jefferson feared, heralded the reclamation of the medieval imagination that he believed benighted the world for one thousand years.
Jefferson need not have worried about Virginia. The changes made to the Westminster Confession in 1789 took the last serious teeth out of Calvinist political theology, and most serious Protestants in the Commonwealth saw disestablishment as prudential, if not good. New Englanders and the occasional Carolinian remained more circumspect.

I disagree with you.
He is not advocating for anything that people like Calvin, Luther, Gill, Owen, John Murray and even the WCF does not advocate for.

“One nation under God.”
Where do you think that comes from?
Which God is it talking about?

Tom

“Protestants teach unanimously that it is incumbent on kings to find out, receive, embrace, and promote the truth of the gospel, and the worship of God appointed therein, confirming, protecting, and defending it, by their regal power and authority.” —John Owen, A Vindication of the Animadversions
on Fiat Lux, 1664

One nation under God" is a phrase from the American Pledge of Allegiance, added in 1954 to distinguish the U.S. from "godless" communism. The phrase is also the title of several books, films, and albums, and is used in a religious context to mean that the nation is subject to the authority of God.

@toddstevens9667
17 hours ago
I don’t think we should fool ourselves here: 1) Baird is a Presbyterian. He got the idea for this book by reading Calvin on civil magistrates. Even though Baird claims that we aren’t talking about a state church, Calvin certainly is. And none of this really works without a state church. 2) Baird might be excited about Vance quoting the Nicene Creed, but what if Vance started quoting the Marian Dogmas, or the articles from the Council of Trent anathematizing those who teach salvation by faith alone? “True Religion” is often in the eye of the beholder. I do not think Vance has the “True Religion.” 3) Since none of this really works without a state church, do we really want Donald Trump or Joe Biden deciding which “True Religion” to promote? Don’t be silly. 4) We have a democratic republic form of government. The state is “of the people, by the people, and for the people.” Does anyone really trust the American people to put the right people in office to make these sorts of decisions? That’s even more insane than letting Trump or Biden decide the outlines of “True Religion.” 5) None of this means that Christians shouldn’t be active and outspoken for Jesus in the public sphere. We need to vote for the candidate that best reflects our views and even run for office ourselves. But government-promoted religion is not the NT way. The Apostles lived in a pagan tyranny. They didn’t depend on government-promoted religion. They went out and preached the Gospel, obeyed the government when they could, ignored it when they couldn’t, and offered their lives in martyrdom as testimonies to the power of Jesus Christ. You see Paul evangelizing government officials, but you don’t see him trying to get them to promote Christianity through government power.

The problem with adopting reformed theology is that it’s really hard to divorce it from the historical context in which it was created. All the Reformers were creating doctrine and theological systems for state churches. None of the Reformers could even have conceived of a separation of church and state. It would have been incomprehensible to all of them. Going to Calvin to learn about civil magistrates and church/state relations makes absolutely no sense 500 years later in the United States. It’s a different historical time and context. We are clearly in a post-Christian nation at this point. And trusting Donald Trump, JD Vance, Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, or AOC to promote “true religion”is pretty crazy.

Actually, it is very clear that America does not advocate for a state Church.
It would not matter whether or not Calvin advocated for a state Church or not.
America, however according to the Pledge of Allegiance is “One Nation under God”.

It would appear then that you agree with some Christians and secularist that say, “the American experiment is dead.”
Why does Scripture (particularly Romans 13) state that the magistrate get’s its authority from God? And why does it indicate that the magistrate is accountable to God?
I have listened to quite a few sermons on Romans 13 now. One really good one was a series by Samuel Waldron,on the passage. They indicate the same thing.
Yet, I have also listened to the other side on Romans 13, that disagree with Samuel Waldron. One in particular by a prominent figure in T4G, that indicated that the government was in their right to do what they did during Covid.
In the process the slamming John MacArthur.



England however had one state Church and that is why people like non compliant Baptist pastors like John Bunyan were thrown into prison in the mid 1600s.
America still was founded with the law of God as the founding principle. Yet, stayed away from a state Church, for reasons like that.


My understanding also, is many of states originally had their own constitutions. That were very straightforward about God being their foundation.
I maintain that, a country does not need to have a state Church for these principles to work.

THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
In Congress, July 4, 1776
THE UNANIMOUS DECLARATION
of the
THIRTEEN UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume, among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.--That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed

Anti-monarchical Puritans, “thinking to have ended the isolation from the Continental churches which the king had imposed on them, and expecting international endorsement of their cause, found themselves scorned by Europe’s Protestants for their political disloyalty and their religious radicalism.” Tellingly, Worden notes, a “frosty reception greeted Cromwell’s attempts of the 1650s to mobilise the evangelical cantons of Switzerland against the Popish threat.”
Differences among British Reformed Protestants—the Scots and the English approached political theology differently—and between Britons and their French, German, Hungarian, and Swiss Reformed brethren meant significantly different conceptions of the state marked international Calvinism. Those differences increased during the Glorious Revolution, American Revolution, and the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars. Dutch Reformed Protestants welcomed the institution of their firmly establishmentarian monarchy in 1813, fifteen years after Presbyterians in the United States concurred with Thomas Jefferson that the federal state could not be cognizant of religion, much less make choices about what was true religion.
Where I disagree with Baird is that I do not see a seamless unity in Reformed political theology–across a given chronology, or transmitted generationally from one era of Reformed thinkers to the next–that can be pressed on American clerics or laity, much less the American state. The rejoinder, I imagine, would be that this is not about the state perse, but the religious people of the American Union electing men who will favor Christianity within the United States’ constitutional framework. I’m sympathetic to that argument, but unconvinced. Politics is the art of the practical, and I don’t see how the federal government or one of the 50 constituent states as they are can uphold true religion, especially when conservative Protestants make common political cause with, to pick one example, Oneness Pentecostals in the Trumpist Coalition. If the state can excise Oneness Pentecostals from its dutiful upholding of true religion–I assume Mormons and other heterodox Revivalist groups don’t make the cut–then the state is thinking in a Trinitarian manner. Fair enough, but the Trinity is only authoritative because it is in a Creed–a creed Im thankful for and consider binding as an Anglican–but a Creed nonetheless that not even Southern Baptists find binding. What is the reason for including non-creedal Southern Baptists and not various forms of Pentecostals? The reason seems to be that, well, Southern Baptists have numbers, and are sort of Calvinists, and many conservative PCAers are ex-SBCers. All well and good, but Anglicans and Lutherans, unlike the Reformed, find Southern Baptists views on baptism revolting, if not worthy of anathematization. Anglicans feel similar about Reformed ecclesiology; Lutherans about Reformed sacramentology; the list goes on. If state personhood makes it capable of judging theology on a basic level, what keeps it from operating as a more sophisticated theological person? Calvin, Cranmer, and Luther certainly thought it could.
These questions aren’t meant to nitpick, but to ask questions about what the American state is, a question that still seems unanswered by Protestant thinkers interested in resourcement. Baird appeals to Protestant divines and their appeals are compelling. But the United States constitutionally does not make clerical admonitions politically binding. However the voice of the people of the United States, in congress assembled, is politically binding. I think Mr. Baird’s thesis would be strengthened if say Dwight Eisenhower or George W. Bush could be shown to make similar arguments as Hodge Murray about the state’s duties towards religion. - Miles Smith

I would like Pilgrim to comment on the 27min mark of the video. I’m not sure how to rectify that. We don’t want the state promoting PC(USA) so how would that work?

Pilgrim

I have to admit I am a bit shocked at your response. Not because you disagree so much.
Rather, that some of what you said I have never heard before coming from any sermons or Commentaries I have heard/read before.

For example:
Context (1 Corinthians 10:31)

It is my understanding that saying: “whether you eat or drink… do all to the glory of God” applies only to believers and therefore cannot be extended to the world.
Problem:
• While the immediate audience is the church, the principle expresses a universal purpose for creation (cf. Ps. 19:1; Isa. 43:7; Rom. 11:36; Col. 1:16).
• God’s glory is the chief end of all things, not merely the duty of believers. The verse reveals the believer’s conscious aim but does not limit God’s design to them alone.

Saying that, because I have a lot of respect for you, I think I need to review some commentaries.

It is true that ALL THINGS glorify God in some manner, for God has ordained ALL THINGS, even the most wicked, for it demonstrates His holiness and perfect justice which will be fully revealed in the end. It is God's eternal plan for time and eternity that cannot be changed for it is perfect. Therefore we look to His "revealed will" for answers to our questions concerning ALL THINGS. Does Scripture in any way shape or form teach that it is His purpose that "government glorify God via the appointment by whatever means of men (women?) perfectly adhere to and demand and enforce the law of God upon all others living under their rule?" I find no such pretext.

Maybe do like Voddie said and communicate to your officials and magistrates - write them letters and phone their office, pray to and for them.

1. “Natural law foundations of justice and social order are completely Christian.”

Christian Nationalists are a distraction from the corruption in culture.

They seek to make every citizen acknowledge the Lordship of Christ.

What will the nationalists do that has not already been established in our long-standing history?

Christian Nationalism is building a boogeyman.

That’s a distortion.
No faithful Christian—past or present—believes civil law can regenerate hearts. The goal is not coerced conversion but righteous governance under Christ’s kingship.
Early Americans did not punish unbelief; they simply expected that public servants uphold the moral and religious framework consistent with the gospel that shaped their civilization.

The Founders knew there is no neutrality in public life. Every government serves a god—either the true God or a false one. To claim the state can be “secular” is itself a religious statement—it deifies man. Christian Nationalism, in its historic sense (Voddie Baucham agrees), simply insists that nations have a duty to recognize Christ’s authority (Psalm 2:8–10; Matthew 28:18–20).

⸻

1. You said:
Quite a lot, actually—but not in the way critics imagine.
Christian Nationalists, properly defined, are not inventing something new; they are calling America back to her own history—a time when her constitutions, laws, and moral expectations reflected a Protestant framework. (this is an important point).
In 1778, South Carolina declared the Christian Protestant religion to be the official religion of the state. Massachusetts empowered its legislature to fund the “public worship of God.” Delaware and Vermont required public officials to profess faith in Christ.

If that heritage is “long-standing,” then the real innovation came not from Christian Nationalists but from 20th-century secular revisionism. The 1947 Supreme Court’s reinterpretation of the First Amendment was the radical break—not those who wish to restore the founding order.

⸻

5. You said:
That’s an ironic charge, given that the supposed “boogeyman” is nothing more than the biblical vision of Christ’s kingship applied to civic life.
The Founders did not fear that idea—they legislated from it. They saw the magistrate as a “nursing father” to the church, in line with Isaiah 49:23. They knew civil government is a minister of God (Romans 13:4), not a morally neutral referee.

Modern critics call this dangerous, but the danger lies not in a government that acknowledges God—it lies in one that denies Him. A state that refuses to honor Christ inevitably honors idols: human autonomy, sexual perversion, or statism.

The call to restore a distinctly Christian order is not the creation of a monster; it is the return of sanity.

⸻

6. The Real Question

The issue is not whether nations will be religious—it’s which religion will govern them. The American Founders chose Christianity, not paganism.
Modern secularists have merely swapped one orthodoxy for another: the worship of man instead of the worship of God. Those who appeal to “natural law” while rejecting Christ’s Lordship end up enthroning human reason, which history shows is the cruelest master of all.

Thus, to insist on the Lordship of Christ over nations is not fanaticism—it is faithful stewardship. Anything less is rebellion disguised as moderation.

⸻

Conclusion

The American Founders were Christian nationalists in principle if not in label. They did not fear the union of Christianity and civil order, so long as it was bounded by Scripture and reason.
Their vision was not a theocracy but a Christian Constitutional Republic—a free society governed by laws that reflect God’s moral order. To reject that today is to reject the very foundation on which America was built.

So the question isn’t, as you stated: “What will Christian Nationalists do that hasn’t already been done?”
It’s, “Why have we abandoned what our fathers knew to be good, true, and necessary for liberty?”

What about people like Thomas Jefferson?

The First Amendment (“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion…”) was written to limit Congress, not the states. It prevented the federal government from creating or prohibiting religion, while leaving the states free to support or establish Christianity as they saw fit. Jefferson himself affirmed this in his correspondence after his presidency.

Many Freemasons and Deists seem to borrow vocabulary terms from each other when expressing thoughts about the Creator. The words "Grand Architect" was a common Freemason expression for the Creator, especially in the letters of George Washington. That reference specifically may be based in the Freemason tradition since architecture was symbolic as it pertained to the "builders of men."

He was known to use a Deistic vocabulary in his writings and speeches, and his references about the Holy Trinity mirror Jefferson’s almost identically – “mindless jargon” as he referred to it. Madison, perhaps more than any other president, believed strongly on the separation of church and state and was influential in his writings on the subject.

Three Critics of King of Kings

I would like to push back a little on some of Baird’s arguments. I commend much in the book, and I applaud Baird for writing a short, accessible book that, in my estimation, adheres well to Scriptural principles. However, I disagree with the thesis that the government should promote Christianity.

Baird’s False Dilemma
Baird, like many others, seems to put forward only two options: (1) our society could be run by secular degenerates who only lead us towards implosion, or (2) our society could be ruled by Christian leaders who lead us towards another Christendom. While I share many popular criticisms about secularism, it would be wrong to assume these are our only two options. It is possible for unbelieving rulers to act in ways that honor the Lord. In Genesis 20, Abimelech is angry with Abraham because Abraham offered Sarah as his sister, almost causing Abimelech to commit adultery. In Exodus 18, Jethro offers Moses advice on judging the people by appointing judges “who fear God, who are trustworthy and hate a bribe…” Even unbelieving rulers can recognize the wisdom of our God through the created order and apply it in ways to maintain justice and order.

Baird’s Category Error
Baird argues that the government must promote the public good, but I think he fails to correctly identify the boundaries within which the government is to operate. When Paul says that government is “God’s servant for your good” (Rom 13:4), he seems to be addressing how to avoid the wrath of government. Paul’s answer is to do what is good, and you will have nothing to fear. Why? Because the government does not wield the sword in vain. It seems then that the action of government is to punish evil in the civil realm, and that is how it serves for the good of the people.
The question must then be asked: what realm does the government operate in? Baird argues that government operates in the external realm. He writes, “God designed government to deal with the external things of man, not the internal things.” There is some debate over the reformed view of two kingdoms. Some would like to see categories of internal vs external. While others would use categories of civic vs spiritual. I do not think Baird wants the state to regulate the church’s worship. He makes a strong distinction between the church and state, with which I agree. So, while he uses categories of internal vs external, I think he would also agree that the government is to operate in the civic realm. The very nature of the term “civil magistrate” suggests this. I would agree that the government is to operate in the civil realm. That looks like maintaining order and justice across a society to protect the people and their God-given rights. It follows then that the government should not wield the sword against other religions, which would be a redemptive realm issue. So then, why does the government’s duty, when stated positively as the promotion of good, include religious aspects? It seems that if we give over the power to promote religion to the government, we must also give over the sword to promote religion, a step I think few are willing to take. And one the Bible does not call for. Government exists for the good of all people inasmuch as it wields the sword not to be a “terror to good conduct, but to bad” (Rom 13:3).
It would then be in the government’s best interest to allow religions that promote morality to have free rein to cultivate a just and ordered society. Religious liberty could serve the government in promoting morality, leading to a more ordered society. Of course, the government should in no way punish what God has called good. It should not put up roadblocks to the advance of the gospel and building of Christ’s church. But it is another thing entirely to argue that the government must advance the church.

Baird’s Underestimation of the Scope of Civil Laws
Baird argues that Christianity is in the best interest of all people because through it comes morality and righteousness. I would respond with two thoughts. Firstly, Christendom does not have an outstanding track record of acting in the public’s best interest. It seems inevitable that those who wield the sword to promote Christianity will one day wield the sword to punish non-Christians. But secondly—and more importantly —I think views that argue for promoting Christianity through the government underestimate the scope of natural and civil laws. Consider the issue of homosexuality, which is a crime of a civic nature. It is a distortion of marriage. If you have attended any wedding recently, you likely heard the words “By the power vested in me by the state of [name your state].” When a pastor performs a wedding, he is acting as an agent of the state. Marriage was instituted by God before the fall, so it follows that marriage/family issues are within the realm of civic life. So, it would be within the government’s scope to protect civic life and its foundational elements, namely, the family. So, a government that outlaws homosexual marriage would be well within the purview of what Paul lays out in Romans 13. Why? Because homosexuality is a violation of the law of Christ? Well, it is, but that would be grounds for not allowing it in your church. The government should outlaw it, because it is a violation of the natural law, of which Paul says all people “have written on their heart” (Rom 2:15).1

In sum, the government exists as the servant of God to maintain order in the civil realm and has been given the necessary tools in natural law and the sword to accomplish its mission without mixing the civil and redemptive administrations of God during the church age.
More can be said about natural law, but that is beyond the scope of this post. I would define natural law as God’s will for the created order as revealed in creation

That brings me to the heart of my comments around Baird’s book. For all the good that can come from Christian magistrates advancing the Christian gospel while in office, there are also profound ways in which this can go off the rails.

Let me get to the heart of his argument:

First Premise: Government must promote the public good.

Second Premise: As the only true religion, Christianity is part of the public good.

Conclusion: Government must promote Christianity as the only true religion.

That’s a simple enough argument. I do not deny the first premise. What I question is how Christianity functions as a “public good” in the second premise. Baird makes a convincing case for how Christianity is a public good in promoting true morality, none of which I really disagreed with. But Christianity is more than a public good. It is an eternal good. It is more than morality and traditional values, but no less than those things. What I question is the “adjective.” While the moral law is inherently and decidedly good, “Christian” denotes a regenerative reality. Therefore, we should always exercise caution before slapping “Christian” on things that reside outside of a regenerate context.

One further observation: Even if we grant that government should promote “true religion,” that is not a self-executing concept. Which means, for example, that the state granting capacious freedoms to diverse religious citizens is one very practical way it promotes true religion—by not standing in its way or obscuring pure religion.

If I were to re-work the syllogism, it would go like this:

First premise: Government must promote the public good.

Second premise: Moral laws known through the natural law promote the public good.

Conclusion: Magistrates must promote the natural law, a moral law that is fully and finally revealed within the regenerate community.

I offer this because everything the natural law posits serves to order society properly. Yes, Scripture confirms the edicts of the natural law, corrects its misapplications, clarifies it in a covenantal context, and completes the natural law’s ultimate telos. But a society that orders itself according to the natural law will, in the end, look like a nation influenced by the moral leaven of the gospel because God’s natural law and God’s revealed law are the same, albeit disclosed through different media. This allows us to execute justice and moral righteousness without blurring important distinctions that muddy the distinct callings of church and state.

If I were to identify the book’s biggest flaw, it would be its omission of covenantal progression. Now, I’m a Progressive Covenantalist, and I assume Baird is a traditional Covenantalist as a Presbyterian. This explains why he tends to overlay Old Testament horizons with a one-to-one correspondence into the New Testament. There is no discussion of the progression and unfolding of covenants; or no sustained discussion of how Israel’s theocracy dissolves in light of Christ; or why the motif of “nursing fathers” (Isaiah 49:34) that Baird relies so heavily on for his view of the civil magistrate is best interpreted in view of restoring Israel to protect the bloodline of the promised Messiah so that the nations would honor him. It would be better to understand the “nursing fathers” imagery in view of the roles of the Apostles and the role of the church (see 1 Thess. 2:7). The desire of magisteralists to blend the parental language of nursing fathers and mothers with civil authority exemplifies the hermeneutical flaw of incorporating significant portions of the Old Covenant into the New without taking into consideration the progression of the biblical storyline. This flattens the storyline of Scripture and fails to see how such categories typologically unfold in light of Christ.

Another criticism is the practical takeaways Baird wants to see in action. For example, he says on page 3, “the way someone goes about fulfilling his duty will depend greatly upon the circumstances.” But a few sentences later, he says, “By ‘promote,’ I mean the activity of encouraging, supporting, advancing, or furthering the progress of something.” Okay, fair enough. But if the government has a divine obligation to promote Christianity as the true religion for the sake of the public good, shouldn’t there be more specifics on how to do that? Why doesn’t the Bible spell that out? I’m sure that Marco Rubio preaching the gospel at Kirk’s memorial satisfies Baird’s criteria, but I’m left wondering what else a Christian magistrate should do: Penalize blasphemy, convene synods, or restrict the construction of mosques and synagogues? Or is this just about issuing Thanksgiving Day proclamations that invoke the name of Christ (appropriately phrased, I would be entirely in favor of such a thing). For clarity’s sake, it would be beneficial if such recommendations were fully explained in much more technical detail. What is off-limits and permissible for the magistrate to do when it comes to promoting true religion? I wish more explanation had been offered.

Baird states on page 24: “To speak plainly, everything wonderful about our society today sits upon the foundation of Christianity.” Yes, it does. It should be noted that the truthfulness of this claim also occurs within a context of disestablishment, which makes me question the necessity of Baird’s central argument. And, in a counterfactual reality that goes unaddressed in the book, Baird ignores the terrible consequences that have accrued throughout the history of church-state establishments (e.g., wars of religion, inquisitions, the politicization of Christianity, and Christians persecuting other Christians).

But that also brings me to another counterclaim: I see no New Testament command that the civil magistrate or government should seek to mediate the redemptive covenant. Must the civil magistrate and government honor God and seek His justice by obeying the moral law? Yes, absolutely, as all of creation must. But honoring God’s moral law is not the same as the government mediating or entangling itself in redemptive realities—especially when it lacks the mandate and safeguarding mechanisms that Jesus gave to the church (see Matt. 16:19).

Another thought that recurred throughout my reading: If Baird’s thesis is what must be, how does it function in a constitutional republic with a First Amendment like ours? Though he’s at pains to explain how far we have deviated from the Founders’ original intention to allow states to determine religious affairs on their own, the fact remains that we have a First Amendment. All fifty states have adopted its prescriptions. Baird’s vision would require repealing the First Amendment, as it would require some form of formal establishment (maybe I misread him on this; if so, I hope he corrects me). All that to say: The political theology Baird proposes will leave its proponents profoundly disappointed. After reading his volume, I’m not sure we’ve ever had a Christian magistrate who fits the bill that Baird envisions. And will we ever? And that is one more major critique I have: Political theology should not be held captive to an idealized political arrangement. Political theology must be able to absorb the fluctuations of history’s progression. It needs to work, given whatever state of affairs churches find themselves within. This is one of the attractive features, at least to me, of Baptist political theology: It does not depend on the regime’s favorability or lack of favorability to Christianity. Why? Because we see the church’s mission operating independently of the state’s mission. After reading his volume, I am unsure of how to enact his vision within our current constitutional regime. There is no political will, at all, for revising the First Amendment or restoring any church-state establishment.

And I’m still left wondering: Whose Christianity is to win the day? Protestantism? Catholicism? Finland’s current version of Lutheranism? Who adjudicates what the proper boundaries for “true religion” are? Especially on the assumption that not every officeholder will, themselves, be regenerate? We are left in the uncomfortable position of allowing pagan rulers to promote a Christianity they do not even believe in. This is one of the fatal misfortunes of the magisterial vision: It envisions a degree of stasis that defies the progression of history. It requires adjudicative mechanisms that ensure only regenerate magistrates remain in office. How likely is that to happen?

@JoshMerrick
2 days ago
Yeah, in regard to the book "King of Kings" I was disappointed to see it being promoted by Founders Ministry. Within 1689 circles, this CN movement unfortunately seems to be gaining traction and sweeping more brothers up.

What does 1689 refer to? The earlier WCF ?

After much back and forth on X, Pastor George brings together Pastor James Baird and Professor Darryl "D.G." Hart to discuss their disagreements over the Government Promoting Christianity.

Referenced in this Episode -

Pastor George's Article - Trying to Define Christian Nationalism

@onceamusician5408
2 days ago
my answer?

NO

any form of church religion popular enough to be championed by govt is no longer Christian anyway

why? Jesus Himself said so - strait is the gate, narrow the way and FEW they are who find it. Moreover those many who claim Him are not His if they neither have the Holy Spirit nor are led by Him

and why do we the Christians need state sponsorship?

they will try to control us if they think they can pay the piper

and finally if the apostles did not have it ( state sponsorship and promotion)we do not need it

but if you mean to get in bed with the world and seek such things be my guest

Bite-Sized Christian Nationalism: A Review Article

Darryl G. Hart

King of Kings: A Reformed Guide to Christian Government, by James Baird. Founders Ministries, 2025, xx + 95 pages, $21.98.

The reception to James Baird’s book, King of Kings: A Reformed Guide to Christian Government, suggests that the author is either a genius or an idiot savant; either he has hit upon a truth that practically everyone else has ignored, or he has combined a few Christian aspirations into a basic textbook on good government. The book itself comes (as many evangelical publications do these days) with eight pages of endorsements from pastors, professors, and even a few attorneys and public officials. The consensus among the blurb writers (twenty-six in all) is that Baird’s explanation of government’s duty to promote Christianity as part of the public good is not only timely (since the United States is in crisis) but also reiterates basic Protestant political philosophy. As one endorsement reads, in appealing to “history, Scripture, and reason, [Baird] makes a simple case for why the civil magistrate should promote the true religion.” Although Stephen Wolfe opened the debates about Christian government with his 2022 book, The Case for Christian Nationalism, Baird seems to have scratched the itch that Wolfe exposed. The fact that Baird’s book is one-fifth the size of Wolfe’s may explain some of the appeal of King of Kings.

Another attraction comes from the book’s manner. Baird is not argumentative or theoretical. He holds the reader’s hand and walks effortlessly through syllogisms that are as obvious as they are airtight. His point is that governments have a duty to promote Christianity. Baird also quotes a host of Presbyterian and Reformed sources, from the Westminster Confession to Archibald Alexander Hodge (Charles Hodge’s son), to show he stands in line with the Reformed tradition. His style is personal, even folksy at times, and he refuses polemics. In fact, he avoids all theological labels—he will let theonomists, two-kingdoms proponents, and Kuyperians decide where his book belongs. He is simply explaining the “classical American view” of government.

The problem of avoiding arguments with other views—which would have likely made the book twice as long—is that Baird’s argument, no matter how positive and winsome, is wrong. In fact, its simplicity compounds the errors, which fall into at least two categories—ones of definition or logic and others of history.

At the heart of Baird’s conception is the language of the public good. He finds it in the twenty-third chapter of the Westminster Confession, and it informs a logical syllogism that is the backbone of his argument. The confession affirms that God ordained civil magistrates to be subject to him and rule their people for God’s glory and for “the public good” (Westminster Confession of Faith 23.1). Later, Baird deduces that because government “must promote the public good,” and because Christianity, “the only true religion,” is “part of the public good,” civil magistrates “must promote Christianity as the only true religion” (22). By including Christianity in the public good, Baird has ipso facto made Christianity part of the civil magistrate’s responsibility. Public good then is essential to Baird’s argument. He defines it as synonymous with the common good, or “public welfare,” or “the people’s welfare” (5). He asserts that this idea has been “a permanent fixture in the Western legal and political tradition,” though he does not mention that before the fourth century, among the Greeks and Romans, Christianity was hardly part of the ancients’ understanding of “public good.” Baird also finds the language of “general Welfare” in the preamble to the United States Constitution. Later when discussing the American Founding and the First Amendment, Baird asserts that the Founders wanted the state governments, not the federal authorities, to promote Christianity and that few agreed with Thomas Jefferson’s separation of church and state. He avoids entirely the reasons that led all the original states to embrace Jefferson’s position and abrogate government support for established churches (the last two establishments to disestablish religion were New Hampshire in 1819 and Massachusetts in 1833). By situating the “public good” in the Western and American political and legal traditions, Baird makes it seem like promoting Christianity has been at the heart of the West’s understanding of government’s proper function since the days of Aristotle.

Baird’s sleight of hand in relying on “public good” avoids any discussion of demographics. Public is, after all, shorthand for the people in a community or society. What happens when the American public is religiously diverse? What then constitutes the general interest of a diverse public? To be sure, the United States was overwhelmingly British and Protestant at the Founding, even as the small number of Roman Catholics and Jews practiced their faiths freely in places like Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island. In the demographic mix were African slaves (almost twenty percent of the population) who could not practice their indigenous faiths. But after 1850, immigration changed fundamentally the demographics of the United States at the same time that it increased the number of non-Protestant and non-British Americans. Baird’s failure to acknowledge the country’s diversity, consequently, leaves his definition of the public good either stuck in the year 1800 or implies support for a policy of deporting non-Christian (more likely non-Protestant) Americans. To be fair, Baird admits that he has no policy prescriptions and also advises prudence when considering how the government should promote Christianity today. “We must adapt to our circumstances,” he writes, and to “our fellow citizens” (79). At the level of definitions and logic, however, Baird does not adapt his basic category of “public good” to the current circumstances of the United States.

The author’s abstractions also led to a faulty history of Christianity and government that also deceives readers into thinking that promoting Christianity as the public good will return the United States to its previous order and stability. (By another sleight of hand, Baird manufactures examples of good government from Old Testament kings, the pagan rulers, Nebuchadnezzar and Cyrus the Great. He does not stumble once over the anachronism of using ancient, divine-right monarchies as examples for modern republican government.) Baird quotes Protestant sources freely from John Calvin and John Owen to Charles Spurgeon and John Murray with no regard to the political circumstances of sixteenth-century Geneva, seventeenth-century England, Victorian London, or 1960s Glenside, Pennsylvania. Granted, if the purpose is to apply basic definitions, attention to different forms of government and citizenship between 1545 and 1965 might seem unnecessary (and add another hundred pages to the book). Even so, Baird might have at least paid some attention to Calvin’s relationship to Geneva’s city council and compared it to Owen’s relationship to Oliver Cromwell to see how well the Protestant governments in the past adhered to the ideal governments espoused by Calvin and Owen.

An even greater historical weakness comes when Baird fails to situate American norms for government within the broader sweep of Christian history. Again, such considerations would make a much longer book. But it would also acquaint readers with the exceptionalism of the American Founding (and why Calvin and Owen were no longer relevant for Jefferson, Adams, and Madison). Protestants who consider the church as an outsider to government have little trouble finding biblical support. Unlike the Old Testament’s divine right monarchy, the New Testament presents a people, persevering and waiting for the return of their Lord. The only political instruction they receive is to honor the emperor, a Roman official who sometimes persecuted and killed Christians. Then out of the blue came Constantine’s conversion, and almost as suddenly Christianity became the established religion. Some Christians were not pleased by the worldliness that came with ties to the state. That is why some renounced the world to become monks, and it also explains why so many reform movements before the Reformation came from monastics who wanted church officials to live and minister more like apostles than Roman governors. But from the fourth century to the eighteenth century, Christianity was preeminent in European society thanks to the symbiotic relationship between throne and altar.

The Reformation obviously upset this religious and cultural establishment. Having two or more churches within one Christendom proved contentious, even if historians sometimes go overboard blaming war on religious differences. Even in England where legal and political institutions created checks and balances that Americans celebrate in the Constitution, a Civil War between Parliament and Charles I (1640s) revealed the problems of a monarch as head of the church within the Christendom model. The Glorious Revolution of 1688 finally gave Parliament standing that it may not have had previously and resulted in a constitutional, as opposed to a divine-right, monarchy. But that did not resolve the problems of an established church and what to do with dissenters (such as Puritans and Presbyterians in England).

What the American Revolution (and its later constitutional arrangement) accomplished was both a political framework that limited the power of the civil government (with three branches) and a religious settlement that removed entanglement between churches and the state. To be sure, established churches still existed at the state level, but even these proved unworkable once, for instance, Massachusetts refused to require Unitarians in a specific town to pay taxes to support the Trinitarian pastor (or vice versa).

This fifteen-hundred-year-history is almost entirely absent from Baird’s book. He simply and somewhat breezily suggests that if today’s Protestants simply followed the ideas of theologians and pastors from the period between 1540 and 1880, Americans could recover a government that promoted Christianity as the public good. That is the heart of Baird’s deception. Political change is difficult enough in a society as large, free, wealthy, and powerful as the United States. Moving a nation from its current political configuration back in time to a golden era is impossible. But positive responses to Baird’s book indicate he has touched the nerve of nostalgia. Those reactions also suggest political and historical naiveté.

For all the defects in American government over the past thirty-five years (though many readers of Baird speak often of the “postwar consensus,” a reference to the 1950s when liberalism turned secular), the simple assertion that government needs to promote Christianity is no remedy. It has no chance of being implemented and Baird (thankfully) refuses policy recommendations. What is needed is for Christians, as much as their callings allow, to support the existing institutions that secure liberties for churches (and more) and that preserve public order. For over two hundred years Americans knew how to do that without relying on governments promoting Christianity. Where the United States has erred recently has less to do with secularization than with government overreach. That Baird can call for a government powerful enough to promote the true religion, only five years after governments ignored civil liberties to enforce public health, is well-nigh amazing. And yet, the author does not appear to be bashful in calling upon government to implement the idea of the public good affirmed by a minority of the American people.

What the American Founding and subsequent history teaches is that the United States needs less government, not more. Slapping the sticker, “Christian,” on big government only adds one more voice to the cacophony of activists who propose more government rather than less.

Darryl G. Hart is distinguished associate professor of history at Hillsdale College in Hillsdale, Michigan, and serves as an elder at Hillsdale Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Hillsdale, Michigan and as a member of the Committee on Christian Education. Ordained Servant Online, March, 2026