Report on Reformed Christian Politics

♪ Dun-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un ♪ ♪ I, in the Lord, You put my trust ♪ ♪ How is it then that ye say to my soul flea as a bird ♪ ♪ Until your mountain high ♪ ♪ For though the wicked bend their bow ♪ ♪ Their shaft on string they fit ♪ ♪ That those who walk right are in heart ♪ ♪ They privately may it ♪ Good evening and welcome back to the Old Pass podcast. Glad to be here with Cody again. And our topic tonight is the report on Reformed Christian Politics. You've probably seen this going around the Internet. How it's produced by Zachary Garris, Sean McGowan, and Stephen Wolf. We've had Stephen on our podcast before a few times. And so we're glad to reconsider the things that he's teaching. He's endeavoring to serve the church and the wider political community by recovering, reformed political theory and answering objections to it. And we think that's a worthy effort. We want to encourage what's good in it. And so it seemed good to us to read the introduction. It's nine pages and pause at times and make comments. Cody, is there anything you want to say before we get started? Yeah, I think I would just say appreciate the work of these men. I think it will be a profit. And I'm looking forward to working through it this evening. Good. Well, I'll start us off. For several decades now, Reformed academics, pastors and laymen have been gripped by a spirit of ad fontays. A return to the sources. Many have recognized that something went terribly wrong in 20th century of form theology. There was bad trinitarian theology, weak satiriology, a poor understanding of nature and grace and many other problems. The Presbyterian historian Carl Truman blamed our troubles on a whole cultural way of thinking theologically, one that is biblisist, unconventional and attached from history. Our cultural way of thinking locked us into assumptions that felt normal and even superior to those of the past. Those who knew of and preferred the discontinuities appealed to "simper refermanda" that is, our progress from the prejudices of the Reformers, away from ideas that they purportedly inherited uncritically from medieval theology. However, it is now evident that our cultural way of thinking diminished our theology. We regressed our cultural milieu and the norms we received from our upbringing came to shape our theology at times in disastrous ways. Well, so far seems to be a good assessment to me. I would simply note it's cute that they quote Carl Truman first, who is no friend of Christian nationalism to say the very least. [laughs] Yeah, I mean, he's no friend of, as far as understanding, but on the right, we call Truman as partly responsible for the wonderful Amy Bird from years back and her ascension to notoriety. Yeah, I'm not sure why quote him, but maybe they think it gives certain credence or importance or significance. I think you could have quoted him by leaving me in the footnote and you didn't even have to put him in the body. You know, that would have been like a more appropriate, in my opinion, morally appropriate thing to do. It could be tongue in cheek, but yes, it's unfortunate because this is not a man to be recommended. Well, we can trade off code if you want to read some. Yeah, second paragraph. Until recently, retrieval projects focused on theological works. One may have predicted years ago that retrieval would not stop there, that we would soon translate works of ethics, domestic duties, and politics written by our spiritual forefathers. It was a matter of time before our cultural ways of political thinking would come under strain and face challenges. That challenge has arrived. Indeed, it is increasingly obvious that political thought among reformed Christians today is far more aligned with modern liberalism than with nearly anything in the reform tradition before the 20th century. As if by second nature, most Presbyterian elites affirm the novel jurisprudence of the war in court regarding religion in public life, deny that civil government may promote true religion and deny that a nation may be properly designated Christian, contrary to both the reformed and American political traditions. Of course, our modern elite could be right. However, this should raise the question is our political thought, a product of our cultural way of thinking. Michael, what is the jurisprudence of the war in court? Well, I think regarding religion in public life, that would be pointing to like, angle versus vital removal of prayer from public schools, removal of Bible, reading from public schools. But the war in court was also notorious for stopping the laws against misegination for promoting interracial marriage. So they don't mention that, of course. Okay. Yeah, I'm not familiar. I mean, is this a sincere question? Let's see. This would be the Supreme Court in the days of the Civil Rights Revolution. Established a strict separation between church and state, primarily by banning government sanctioned prayer and devotional Bible reading in public schools. I see. Yeah. What do you think of this line? Yeah, I mean, it's, it's a detached generous posture. And I've not, obviously, I've not read the forework yet. I've really just tipped into it. But it's a tone that does seem to be throughout it. I'm not sure how useful that could be. But I don't think they're right. Clearly they're in turn. They're not going to be right. Yeah. I mean, if you're saying like hypothetically, they're right, but they need to make the case. Okay. But they're not, they're not going to make a case. They can't make a case. It's totally contrary to the way they operate. I think the main point is right that a challenge has arrived from the recovery of reform political works. And yourself have participated in that challenge and republishing some of them. Yes, that's right. And I mean, I think that this is correct. Yeah, we've basically moved on from the Trinity stuff, although that still persists in some ways, you know, things that maybe Doug Wilson says or Owen Strayon says or James White. Yeah, I remember that was quite a sort of furious debate some years back. Yeah, I remember James White, viciously strong manning, has to Josh summer. That was like the first time I began to think, man, maybe James White has some serious issues. And of course, it's only been reinforced over time. And especially when it comes to this political stuff and his reaction against Christian nationalism and Stephen and the use of reason and natural law on his to presuppositionalist. And that's kind of related to all these things as well. I don't know if they know this. I would suspect that they do know presupp in the document. No. I don't think so. Anyway, I just mean as a distinct like a method methodology. They do know that wolf is not a Ken with the presuppositionalist Christian reconstructionist. And I think the last question is valid is our political thought of product of our cultural way of thinking. Yeah, so I mean, you can turn that objection that people will raise right back on them. But I think the reality is both sides have a point is that whatever we do is historically and anthropologically conditioned. And it's not possible to transcend that and become like. Absolutely purely objective in the sense of you have no influences upon you whatsoever from history or from men. That's just impossible. Right. Right. It seems better to be honest about his influences and to see good influences. Right. And to be familiar to do. Sorry, go ahead. No, I just agree. That's a good thing. They're going. They're trying to do to query our influences and make sure that they're sound. Right. Yes, scrutinize your priors. What you take for granted. Why you do so. And then also your familiarity or your lack thereof with what your own forefathers have taught. Very good. I'll keep reading. The re-emergence of two kingdom theology in the last few decades has seemed to reconcile retrieval with modern politics. It has confirmed everyone's political priors, namely a securit secularist state by appeal to historical reform theology. But where would you like to see the re-emergence of the world? Whatever its merits might be, and we will refute it here, at least they're being clear or refuting it, it should strike everyone primathecy as too convenient. Reform theology purportedly demands political thought that uniquely fits and only fits the western politics of the last few decades. The politics of modern two-kingdom theology is not a prudential determination of suitable political arrangements. Rather, it establishes absolute limits on political authority that happen to align perfectly with recent American jurisprudence and the prevailing secularist political thought of the mid to late 20th century, at least regarding religion. Of course, it might be a happy accident, perhaps they are right, but one wonders if there's more to the story, that is whether our cultural way of thinking may have played a part. Now, I'm already tired of this hypothetical stuff, because it's not a happy accident. These men are self-serving abusers of the reformed tradition for the sake of modern secularist politics. And I have no doubt that's what these authors believe, and so it seems just a little bit of a ploy to be so coy. Right. Yeah, I'm inclined to agree with you. I think that when he says the re-emergence of two-kingdom theology, let's say when he says whatever, when it says that, that they have in mind guys like Arscott Clark, Michael Horton, and that whole group. And then he qualified the document, and I keep saying he is qualified modern two-kingdom theology a few sentences later, which is the specific term that Stephen has used for those men. So, often they're called radical two-kingdoms, or R2K, but Stephen, I think even on our podcast before, has called them modern two-kingdom, and he says there's nothing radical about them. I think the point with radical, when people have called them that, is that they take the ideas beyond their proper limits. They stretch them way too far, and they're completely out of place. But I agree with what this is saying. It's kind of too convenient. You look at, interestingly, the politics, apparently the R-Historic politics just happens to match the very new politics, which in a real sense when you look at the history is kind of like an anti-politics. It's really not properly speaking politics. It doesn't engage in it. It doesn't understand man individually or collectively, in all his proper relations that the ways we have historically, you knew when you read some of these classical writers. And Stephen, I think, is his introduction to Kekerman that he wrote, which is one of our reformed Christian political theorists from the past. We publish him at Cycropress. Stephen said something like what moderns call fascist or totalitarian is really just our historic tradition. Or he said something like that. And I thought the same thing when I read these older writers, I thought, man, they put such an emphasis upon agency and great men. They're example. They also often take for granted physiognomy. And then you also see instances where they assume sort of a biological influence from generation to generation, like for instance, even Wendolin, I'm editing him right now. He talks about how certain things are passed from the mother through her milk to the child. And that's why you want the actual mother of the child to nurse the child and not another woman. It's certain things like that. And they say it just without any thought, without any qualification. And you compare this to today and the things we consider taboo is just what it measure up. So I just say all I have to say, yeah, I think modern politics in ways is not even political when you compare it to historic politics. Yes, I agree. Well, why don't you read the next two paragraphs? So this is the purpose of our study report, right? Yep. Yeah. Okay. In this report on reformed Christian politics, we seek to persuade fellow reform Christians as something has gone wrong in our political thought and to convince them of a better way. In general, the reformed world has suffered from unsystematic political thinking, a generational ignorance of the basics, let alone the complexities of reformed political thought, the conflation of theology, ethics and politics, the conflation of ecclesial spiritual unity with civil cultural unity, the injection of supernatural heavenly principles into political order, whose principia are nature and reason, the incoherent and inconsistent application of the exile motif from scripture, the abrogation or supersession of nature by grace, a preeminent interest in our moral witness in this liberal age and many other deficiencies that our spiritual forefathers avoided. Many churchmen treat politics not as a domain of practical philosophy, but rather as a malleable background condition for effective evangelism, peaceful ministry and public access. The political moderate of every age they assume has one less hindrance for cultural engagement. The ideal layman is a moderate public in who prefers to talk about last nights, game over yesterday's news, though the moderate third-wayest or the I critique both sides moralist might have an advantage in evangelism, we find it unlikely, the governing premise is false as politics is not subordinate to misiology. Civil governance rather is an ordinance of God to suppress evil and to promote what is good. These principles and ends are immutable since its intrinsic end is political, the means cannot be misyological except by accident, utilizing politics for misyological witness violates God's intent for politics. Yeah, I think that the first paragraph is good. I mean, I appreciate that they basically want to say something is wrong, there is a radical ignorance, not just of the basics, but of the complexities, even of the methodology, why that was used. So some of this even comes out as a sort of answer in the second paragraph where it speaks of principles, ends, means, this is getting at methodology. So for instance, the last sentence of the second paragraph here, since it's, that is politics or civil governance, since it's intrinsic end is political, the means cannot be misyological except by accident. In other words, they're assuming that you start with the end. So it's a teleological approach and that the means have to fit the end. That's a form of methodology. Right, and once you approach things that way, it is, it is very clarifying. This is one of the things I said that I think is probably most helpful about breeding and comprehending Stephen's book is his methodology. And the same thing for these older writers, whether it's burgers, dyke or kekerman or whomever else, I think very press is even published some material on methodology like grahamism and other things too. These things are helpful to discipline your mind and discipline your subjects too when you go to deal with them. That's good. I agree. I like this line. The ideal layman is a moderate Republican who prefers to talk about last night's game over yesterday's news. Yeah, they seem to think that the best kind of politics is where you are the middle of the road. But that's not true. We may come back to that later, but I'll keep reading. However, many reform pastors and theologians today who demand precision and theology violate basic principles and political and social thought. It's very true. Grace assumes nature. It does not abrogate. It. Not abrogate it is central to our theology. That maximum is central to our theology. But in politics, they have made it into an ad hoc rule of thumb. Grace actually does abrogate or relativize nature in ways that make our public theology more palatable for moderns. So they're talking about the tendency to twist theology to try to make politics more suitable. They suspend fundamental truths to craft our politics for non-political ends. They tell us to dwell on our heavenly citizenship until someone violates certain social dogmas opposed to our liberalism. Then the broadside appears from the mist and the exiled and humble pilgrims wary of power, fire with unrestrained confidence, joining their Babylonian captors and exacting social costs and declaring their announcements. They then withdraw to agreeable reliance on the protection of divine providence and the spirituality of the church. claim that no Baptist is reformed and yet insist on mockery. modern, Baptist, political thought, contrary to nearly every reform writer before the 20th century. In other words, conservative Protestant politics is confused, inconsistent, and almost entirely ad hoc, both in content and public rhetoric. Even worse, in a time when political action to attain righteous laws is still available to laymen, political theology serves only to restrain action, to spiritually pathologize political efforts, to manage our decline, and to see that we and our children are abandoned to the cooling warmth of a smoldering society. Yeah, that's my experience. People make no, but no, they're not ashamed at all to use theology to ad hoc, to try to bring political quietism in an age in which things are burning down around us politically. Right. Which we would say we said before, I think should be emphasized as a third commandment violation. It's an abuse of God's word. That's worth theology derives from the scripture. It sounds a lot like Stephen to me here. I remember reading his book, End of Chapter 3, his sort of self-critique of the West. It's an excellent material. And I think that's when he's at his best or one of his best parts is when he's kind of critiquing our Western malaise psychologically, but also academically and such. One thing I wanted to note, I forgot from one of my paragraphs. So it says, Modern Street politics is a malleable background condition for effective evangelism, practical ministry and public access. On the one hand, I could see why you'd reach that conclusion, but I think that in the sense it's probably too generous of a conclusion for many of these men. I think that the matter is often much more simple. That those things, such as evangelism. So for example, they say, well, in the illegals are here in our country. They even call them illegals. They probably call them immigrants. Then that's an opportunity to satisfy the great commission and all these things. Really these people are just using pious sounding language, slogans and tropes, which they pair it to sound and to appear pious. That's it. The goal is not for them to think clearly about what they're doing and why they're doing it. If it does or does not relate to scripture, to nature, to our historical tradition, that's irrelevant to them. They don't want to honor our tradition. And oftentimes they don't want to act courageously. In fact, I would say when you look at these things, oftentimes, they're just reconciled to be indifferent to sort of our civilizational molestation. And like the Pharisees, they have their chief seats and clever ways of making these pre-tenses to religion when it's not sincere at all. It's a show. And I think that for many of these men, that's the case. So they're not really concerned about effective evangelism. That's just a garnish. It's just a little fig leaf that they put over these things. That's the fact. And you've got to be honest about this, unless you go out there and are far too charitable with men who are otherwise just wolves, and they're going to devour you. I agree completely. I'm glad you brought that up. And then too, yeah, there's like dwell in our heavenly citizenship. Yeah, like they say, basically, don't care about politics. We just need to care about our citizenship in heaven. You know, don't care about whatever your country. We have a heavenly country. You know, and like I said in our series with Gavin, I thought, yeah, okay, what about Nehemiah? What are you going to do? You can't say this. It doesn't work. That's not what that was given for. Or even like today right now, you've got the stuff with Iran and Israel and all this. And so these same people, they'll tell us, you know, violence. You cannot exist among you and you can't exclude others that has no place among Christians. And yet they call for violence against the Iranians. Do they not? I say we can't deport illegals. We can't shut down immigration. And yet at the same time, they basically want an ethno state for the Jews over in Israel. You know, it's not a real principle for these people. It's one of saying it's just a fig leaf. That's it. Agreed. Well, you want to keep reading? Yeah, well, we have page three, even those, even those. Okay, even those who reject this missiological classification remain wary of political systemization, having adopted the postwar conservative rejection of rationalism and ideology. At their best, they appeal to Russell Kirk, Michael Okshot, they were heard of him and other romantic conservatives of the postwar period following the principle of prescription. But this idea, namely that we ought to follow longstanding inherited practice, has proven worthless in combating sweeping changes brought about by modern liberalism. In fact, it is more than worthless as most conservatives today have adopted what they inherited, namely modern liberalism. Like conservatism does not lead society to change, rather it reacts to change and eventually compromises with it. It pulls conservatism along in the long march of progress. I'm thankful to see this. This is some calling like it is. This is spade, spade. If we could speak and I wonder who they have in mind. You know, initially this actually makes me think of John Harris. John Harris always uses that word ideology to basically just a bucket that he can throw anything into that he doesn't like to pathologize. He likes himself some Russell Kirk and Richard Weaver, all these other guys. Yeah, I mean, this definitely, to me, fits him. I'm not sure if that's really happened mind or not. Maybe it does seem to shoe fits. If the shoe fits, folks, and shoe fits, John's foot. The fact is political system is an escapeable, all political thinking flows from some system, whether acknowledged explicitly or implicitly, implicitly. And most Christians today assume a conservative form of the liberal system. We have merely baptized and considered liberalism under the language of biblical worldview, or principled pluralism. But we must escape from the trap we've set for ourselves. Political system where clear and robust ends of politics are acknowledged and sought, does not necessarily entail political ideology as defined by conservative thinkers. It does not absolutize the means or necessitate any particular political arrangements or acts. Rather, it rigorously establishes principles and ends such that prudence and resolve can either work. The same spirit that animates theological retrieval must animate our politics. Our politics must find its rightful place as a branch of practical philosophy. And we should apply just as much rigor to our political system as to our theological system. So I know this is good. He's right to say he, I'm assuming Stephen, but I know there's more than one author. And we need to have a system, we need to be ignored to acknowledge it and not just repeat a conservative form of the liberal system and call it a biblical worldview. And I agree we need to focus on principles and ends. I think that's right. But something we'll see a number of times in what's to come is there seems to be a focus on ends and principles of the expense of particular political arrangements. Many times he'll say something like, well, you could have this arrangement, but what's more important is the principle. The practical politics exists in the arrangements. And I think we need to be careful not to live in a mere realm of theory. So I see this online all the time. When someone posts, saw the mic should receive the death penalty. You should like that post, repost it, agree. But then the theory guy comes along as well. In principle, the government doesn't have to give the death penalty to every single sin. Even sins that are given in the Old Testament because that was a particular law for particular people. And it may be in some circumstances that it is not most prudent to apply the death penalty to sawdemy. And in fact, to insist upon it today and to try to insist to make that a law today would tear the fabric of our society because it would turn present things on their head. And don't you know that all principles have to be applied with prudence? When I hear that kind of thing, I think that's the point. I think that's ridiculous. So I might say to be put to death. And you just kept normal Christians from saying something very sensible by your endless distinctions. Now, did I view you right, David? Did you push up your imaginary glasses on your nose? Yes. Oh, well, actually, yeah. Yeah, I mean, there's a place for those qualifications, but you've really got to be careful, especially when you're trying to like lead people rhetoric has an effect. It can enliven energized inspire or it can just take the wind out of people's sales. And the thing which you just granted, you know, as a principle, because of all your qualifications, you've also taken away any meaningful force that it might have had. Now, there is a reason like God speaks the way that he speaks, you know, David says, God is my rock. You know, he doesn't go into all these philosophical abstract terms. He just gives you the concrete matter right there. There are no qualifications. They're meant to almost like into it. It's a similar thing with our rhetoric and how we present these ideas and academics has a place. You've got to be careful though that it doesn't get in the way actually of the ends that you keep wanting to achieve. Yes. So I think there's a place this will come up is they're going to say their main thesis here in just a moment, government must promote true religion, but they're going to make a number of qualifications, including that that doesn't mean that, for example, blasphemy has to be suppressed in every particular way in every place. Well, that's a true distinction and I understand it, but it still strikes me as taking the wind out of the sales of people because really where the rubber hits the road is that blasphemer should be so should be punished. And we need to be insisting on that practical outcome because that's really what's most important. At the end of the day, there's a sense in which it doesn't matter what principles it takes people to get to the conclusion of publishing blasphemy. It's the conclusion that we need to get to. Now I agree we are thinking needs to be right and we need to be able to give good account. But I would like to make sure always that the theory guys are supporting and defending good solid courageous practice rather than preventing it. Yeah, I agree. This is really part of anthropology, which is part of what politics has rooted in. So if politics has rooted in anthropology, you don't want to take that element of anthropology and pit it against another such as communication and the power of memes, for example, a three or five minute video edit well done could bring people to tears, a 500 page academic text probably is not going to do that. We'll go ahead. Let me bring it back up. Here we go. The fact is, right? That's how we start. Now we're in the next paragraph of these reasons. For these reasons and others, we see great need in the church today for better political thinking. Although our central claim in this report is that government must promote true religion. We hope in general that the political methodology employed by reformed writers may improve. At the very least, we hope that Christian political thought may return to a more systematic presentation and method. Where nature and grace are distinguished, where the principia of various disciplines are acknowledged and followed where Christian ethics cohere with political necessities, where the Amago day is not abused for political ends, where love for neighbor is not flattened but hierarchically ordered. Where theology is ordered to heavenly life rather than utilize for pacifistic ideology or ad hoc political justification, where political means are sufficient and suitable for political ends, where virtue and piety are distinguished but mutually supporting, where absolute principles are distinguished from prudential action, where laymen are free to do assertive political work as citizens, and where pastors and theologians do not vociferously condemn positions that are widely held in our tradition. These advancements would only be the beginning. I'll wrap it up here in this last paragraph. This report written by three American Presbyterians, two ministers and a layman aims to steer, reform Christians, particularly those in Nape Park in the right direction with theological philosophical and historical clarity. We pray that it will serve the church well and equip both pastors and laymen to advance the kingdom of God. Yeah, I agree. We need better political thinking and I agree with the axiom government must promote true religion and that we need better political methodology, absolutely more systematic presentation and method. Yeah, I mean, all the wares in the semicolon list that they've got are good too. These things are solid sound. I agree with them. I mean, I think it's probably going to be a tall order to get quite a few people in Nape Park to care. And then for those that do care to engage for them to engage fairly, right? And then those that maybe are willing to grant the case for them to really do with it, what should be done with it? Most of them are not going to do that. I mean, I made a post about this today. I wasn't trying to discourage anyone, but basically said you're going to have basically three sorts of responses. People are going to ignore it or they'll straw man smear or they'll grant the facts, but then they'll say something like, well, they were made of their times or we have other options for ourselves today politically or they'll say, hey, like James White, well, that was sacralism and we're not going back to that. That's what they'll do. Right. So in other words, just because you do the work and make the case objectively, academically with all your sources and such, that does not mean you're going to convince everyone. And that doesn't mean when you put it out there that people are going to interact with it faithfully. You should expect the same people who have been straw manning and smearing you the whole time to just do the same exact thing. And what they're going to do is they're going to open up the document. They're going to control plus F search for specific buzzwords. They're going to take them out of context. They're not going to read your whole writing. It's irrelevant to them. They just want to destroy you in public. That's what they're going to do. Now, I mean, to their credit, I assume that these guys understood that that's part of what would happen. That's fine. And so they're probably not writing to convince that particular, that particular audience. But even among, I don't know, the detached sort of fence-citters who have a sort of sophistication and at least they're perceived to be intelligent, those sorts of guys, like maybe Kevin to Young, look, he's not going to be faithful with this. And I don't expect to do that at all. He's just going to nitpick it to death and say some of those objections that are brought up. I think that's what's going to happen. Yeah, they think that they're going to positively influence Neapark as Neapark. They're wrong. It might have a few people in Neapark, but it will be a small minority. And it's not in vain for that. It seems even by their very presence, continuing in Neapark, they have a naivety about what life is really like there. Well, I'll keep reading. Now the section is promoting true religion. And they talk about their chief aim. I'll read two paragraphs. The better way that we present here is more measured than one might think. In history of reform, political thought, the principle that civil government ought to promote true religion has been nearly ubiquitous. And I affirm this too, as would you, Cody, this is in reading it, reading any part of the tradition. It is everywhere. Moreover, most have considered it immutable and absolute. And thus a civil ruler must promote true religion. Yes, agreed. But any application of that principle is a political act, and therefore occurs in the realm of contingency and prudence. That is, every political act is a means to an end, not an end in itself. Means to ends are contingents, and circumstances determine the proper mode and measure for an act to achieve its intended end. What is necessary in genus? Maybe contingent and species. For this reason, there are two separate questions. Whether the promotion of true religion is an absolute principle that binds civil government and, too, assuming that we affirm the former, in what particular way we are. ways ought this or that civil government promote true religion, giving its particular circumstances. The former question is principally for political theorists and secondarily for theologians, while the latter is properly won for civil magistrates who must act prudently. The focus of this report is on the question of principle, and as the reader might expect, we affirm. So here I'd reiterate my concern that keeping it entirely in the realm of principle, it actually removes the end of politics, which would be the ordering of the commonwealth under these good ends. There's no way that these principles do anything until they're applied. And for us to simply say, the latter is properly for civil magistrates. It seems that that leaves us off the hook. It is properly for civil magistrates in that they have to do it. They have to apply it, but citizens have to do politics too. And more than that, they have to think and talk about politics. And I again use the example of putting sotomites to death. It's actually right for normal people who aren't civil magistrates to affirm that as a positive good and not worry about this difference between principle and particular ways. Because when you have sotomized running rampant over our country and you're not willing to enact an appropriate penalty for their gross evil, then what use are your principles? Right. Or just carrying it into the family. If your child is being disobedient and they're being stubborn, do you just stop requiring righteousness of them? Do you not discipline them? Even though when you discipline them, it just seems to harden them for a time. In other words, you consider effects, possible effects and ramifications of reactions. Yes, it's part of prudence. But you also have to act in accordance with the principle itself sometimes and simply leave the effects, the ramifications, the consequences to God. Right? Yes. I agree. Look at Christ and this is not a gospel, juke. It's trying to take it to like the clearest case where nobody can object. Christ was sinless. He always acted in accordance with the good and yet on earth, he faced serious consequences for that and was treated as an evil doer. Right? Should he then not have acted that way? And they say, well, we're not saying that necessarily. Well, my point is, is it sometimes bad consequences in concrete follow because we live in a sinful world, even when you act righteously, that does not at all mean that therefore you should not act righteously. You should. I don't hear them saying that, but it would be useful to hear that made more clear. Now there's something that I do kind of want to contest in the middle, but any application of that principle, so the principle that civil government ought to promote true religion, any application of that principle is a political act. Political is a tellurcised and therefore occurs in a realm of contingency and prudence. Well, we don't want to do what the presupps do, right? With knowledge and interactions and apologetics, we don't want to do that with politics either. In other words, we don't just want to reduce it to one dimension, like I brought up with Nehemiah. What he did, he did politically, but he did it unto God. And in that sense, it was not just a political act. It's an act of faith. It's an act of piety. So while we can distinguish these matters and that's useful, you also have to be careful that you don't reduce something and say, well, the government, the magistrate acting this way, that's just political, but it has to be religious too, right? It's got to be in some sense religious. You know, this from Romans 12, off of your body, living sacrifice unto God. He might as well just say, offer everything. As Paul says, do all that you do unto the glory of God. Well, that's not merely political as if it has no reference to faith and to the religion. I mean, even this thing itself, civil government ought to promote religion. You're promoting something that is religious. So it's not just a religious act. I mean, it may require faith at times. Maybe they would not deny that, but the means have to be subordinate to the chief end, as well as the principles. That's right for religion to influence the political acts and means. Right. Is that what you're saying? Yes, but it's probably too big of a discussion right now, but I mean, I don't condemn everything of the past 150 years, or the men who sought to synthesize, even if in seeking to do that they at times confuse or conflated things. I think also at times they were trying to get at something real, which is all these things are sort of interconnected. And you can have your abstract distinctions, but again, in concrete, it's not so easy to parse through things that way. Yeah. Good. Well, I'm going to keep going. Yeah. Demonstrating the principle does not end the investigation as questions remain about the limits of authority. That is, we must determine the objective extension of this principle or the lawful set of species of civil action. The civil magicians promotes true religion morally and properly only within the bounds of civil powers intrinsic limitations. For example, he may not coerce inward faith or force one to confess a lie. He may not assume for himself the preaching of the word, the administration of the sacraments, or the keys of the kingdom. He may not command that this or that man should be ordained or deposed, etc. These limitations are intrinsic to political authority. This nature has designed by God. They have not come from an adventitious divine command. The magicians' lawful actions are limited by the proper objects of civil authority, namely outward things. Yeah. And this is classic Presbyterian two kingdoms. And it has strong biblical standard or biblical proof as well. For example, with Saul who was condemned by God for taking on the work of the priest and offering sacrifices. Yeah. I want to read more on this. And I'd also like to read the Arastians. There are things at times where I'm like, I don't know, I look at Moses at times that they can, he's a magistrate, but he's clearly preaching the word in multiple places. You know, yeah. Yes, but you have clear examples in Scripture of men, so to speak, wearing more than one hat at once. Samuel, so clear example as well. The question is not whether a man can wear more than one hat. It's whether the hats are distinct and whether the office is distinct. So I think that's the important question. Yeah. Well, if they were grant that, then I'm throwing with that. Yeah. But I think it is point is that there are natural limits to civil power. And the question of what those limits are might cause some disagreements, but I think that principle is true. So I'll keep going. With these boundaries in place, the question then turns to the means. As we've said, the decision to act in this or that way, an obedience to the principle is the magistrate's decision. It's more limited by a constitutional arrangement. As he considers the best means to the end, modern Christians often assume that affirming the principle as a generic and absolute command, which we affirm, commits one to absolute commands regarding means which we deny. Church establishment, for example, is but a means to the promotion of religion, not an in and self, or an absolute duty. Now, just want to read the footnote because I think this gives some good clarity. It might affirm that church establishment is always necessary, but this holds only of every contingency or possible set of circumstances renders it a proper means to the end. It remains an act whose goodness is determined in a realm of contingency. It is not absolutely commanded in the same way as its principle. The principle is prior to the contingency. I'll read the rest of the paragraph, but I'll come back to that. It is but one species of acts flowing from the genus, which may or may not be appropriate in a given situation. The magistrate may under the right circumstances promote religion without establishing a church. The same is true of all species of acts, such as the magistrate punishing blasphemy. I have affirming this kind of act is morally permissible, that is, as a moral species of the genus, does not aoeipso commit the magistrate to enact a civil policy that punishes blasphemy. must he punished every instance of blasphemy or punish the evil? each with the same severity. We can reduce this even to individual acts that is members of the species, whether an individual civil acts, a punishing a certain obstinate heretic is good or evil, is not determined solely by the genus or species of the act, but also by whether the individual act can create the achieves the intended good end. All right, so this is more of the same as we're talking about. Before you say, "Government should promote religion, but it doesn't bind you immediately to every means." But the problem is, is that people think in terms of means and practice. So he says, "You can have promotion of religion without establishing a church." And I suppose that's true. We see the faithfulness, for example, of Daniel in Babylon and of Joseph in Egypt. It would have been not only politically impudent, but impossible for them in their magistrate offices to establish the true Israelite church as the church of that nation. I just briefly interject there a second on that same point, but did not Egypt have an established religion and did in Babylon Babylon as well. Babylon. It did. And so we can say, "Well, yeah, they're bound by circumstances, but even the testimony of Egypt in Babylon, especially the testimony of Babylon when Nebuchadnezzar was sent to eat grass and ended up proclaiming the true God, is that they themselves knew that they should establish religion. They should use the civil purse and the civil power to establish religion and that is usually inseparable from establishing a church." So yes, we speak of ideal circumstances when we say a church should be established, but establishmentarianism is the fruit of ideal chrysanthem as far as it's been achieved. So yes, we can make these qualifications, but it seems that they make the qualifications so carefully as if this is no longer a goal to which we press, so that we would not want an established church in America, for example. You know, I don't think that, though I recognize the political prudence of the fact that we don't have one today and that certain kinds of establishment will be impossible politically in America today. I get that, but when he gets to the blasphemy and the punishments of blasphemy, I think this is where it loses me. It's so about theory, but I think it's actually very useful to say without qualification in public that men like Michael Servetus should be put to death in America, obstinate blasphemers, atheists who spread their atheism, deniers of Trinity, opponents to the Christian faith, their murderers of souls, and then he be dealt with with a severity that is at least as serious as physical murderers. And they can say, well, if we did that, it would completely overturn the current state of things in America. And we have to leave it to the simple magistrate and his wisdom and prudence. And I would just say, you know, all this talk about wisdom and prudence is why we're in the state we're in. We've got people blaspheming God and murdering souls at your doorstep. And until we are willing to do this kind of thing, so I don't really have patience for people who are going to make strong statements of application, die the death of a thousand qualifications. I'm with you, brother. I read something on X today. Somebody said something like, I'm not interacting with Protestants anymore unless it's an Anglican or a Lutheran. Something you know, Baptist evangelicals or shallow. And then he had this little brief mention of the reform. He said, they're performed are just insufferable nerds. And I think, whoa, has said something comparable. And I think they have a valid critique at time to I really do. There is a very real theory cell streak, which is a kind of more modern term, but it basically means somebody who loves ideas, loves abstractions and tries to impress you with them, but they're not really doing anything. It's just a complete compensation for lacking anything in real life. And I got to say, yeah, that is really true. And even though some guys on the right, I've got to say it. So these guys in these group chats, they just argue all day long about nonsense, nonsense, man. I think, where do you, first of all, where do you get the time for this? And second, what are you doing? We're tracing back the root of egalitarianism centuries to this and that particular person, because they said this one thing in a way that they maybe shouldn't have said. And they said it a bit more clear. Things would have been different. And and here's why my laboratory of whatever absolutism or monarchy or or apostolic succession or whatever is going to solve all our problems. I was thinking, what are you? Like, where are you at? And you're not on earth. You are somewhere else. Now, I don't think that they're trying to do that here. But I don't think we're necessarily saying that, but we're warning about where these things can go or the ways in which that they can they can hinder you. Yeah, I mean, I think church establishment, religious establishment is inevitable. That's where I think our presup friends, they're right. Man is a religious creature by nature. So each of still had religious establishment, Babylon still had, I mean, the reason the Daniel got thrown into the lions den is because he didn't follow the sort of church establishment of the day. Right. Right. And Shadrach, Misha, I could bed and again, the reason they got thrown into the furnace, same exact thing. They didn't follow church establishment. Right. Now it can be more. It makes sense. We want to replace the pagan church establishment with the Christian church establishment. Exactly. So it's, it can be more or less formal, right. And obviously today, our religious establishment is far less formal, but that doesn't make it less powerful in ways. It makes it more powerful and more pernicious because there's, there is no clear central institution, which you can say that is the focus. Right. So I would like to see some of that realism. Maybe they comes out elsewhere in the book. I'm not sure. Yes. Well, the next paragraph is going to open this a bit more, but I would just say to this is all kind of suspicious. In focusing on the principle, you conveniently remove from yourself the thing that really gets you in trouble with people. And that is in the practice. You can float in the realm of theory and say all we're doing is saying in principle, the magistrate supports religion. Oh, but I'm not saying we should bomb that Hindu temple. I'm not saying that we should kill your atheist neighbor who's spewing heresy all day. I'm not saying it necessarily. Well, and to not not offend the, you know, dissident hard right like us. They'll say, well, I'm not saying not do that either. The point is the principle. And it's, it to me just ends up like a dance where you're just trying to please as many people as possible and get yourself out of trouble. We're going to see that with another line here. So I I agree. Is my turn right? Yeah. All right. Thus affirming. That's right. Right. Thus affirming. Yes. Okay. I saw that phrase again and me question myself. Okay. Thus affirming the principle that government must promote true religion does not logically entail any particular policy or concrete civil act agreed. Rather, it means the civil magistrate must act in a way conducive to this end. But more precisely, he must act according to the possibilities of effective action that are afforded to him by the circumstances. So the fact that we agree with say John Calvin that the civil magistrate ought to promote true religion and that magistrates in the abstract may punish heresy does not commit us to advocating for a return to Calvin's Geneva. This does not follow. Dropping a 16th century Geneva law book onto America, whether 18th century or 21st century would be disastrous. Indeed, it would be immoral. Not because it violates the intrinsic limitations of politics, but because it would in practice lead to anarchy disruption and likely to overthrow over the state. Which I say what's necessarily wrong about that in our present circumstances. Civil action is I've got a lot to say, but keep reading. So do I, brothers? Civil action is good and proper only if it achieves or contributes to a good end within its subjective limitations. However, the magistrate must promote true religion in some way. even if circumstances significantly constrain him. Some civil acts are ordinarily necessary in our view, such as Sabbath laws, not because they are absolute duties of magistrates, per the genus of action, but because they are ordinarily moral necessities, i.e. her species. They are, potentially, always necessary and proper. I'll let you go first, but I have a feeling that I'll repeat much of what you say. It's a good idea. Yes. So I'll start with the end. They say, Sabbath laws can be duties, not because they're absolute, but because they're ordinarily moral necessities. This is my whole point with things like blasphemy and punishing blasphemy. I can agree with the theory that a particular punishment of blasphemy is not in itself finding in every place in time, but it is circumstances in every place in time are so are similar enough that we can say with 99% surety that horrid blasphemers should be put to death and it apply everywhere and at every time. And this is what is typically meant by liberals when they speak of us abdicating for a return to Calvin's Geneva. This is dancing for the left. I'm sorry. I love these men in many ways, but they are dancing for the left because they know that this advocating for a return to Calvin's Geneva means you would kill Michael Servetus. And to that, I think we should all say, yes, of course we would. 150 years of reform theology affirmed in other places and times as well that what Kalvenda was absolute right and should be on the law books. And then they equivocate by dismissing all of it as dropping a 16th century Geneva law book onto America. That's equivocation. Well, of course we wouldn't do that. There are a thousand different things that it would that wouldn't apply. Most of them are just practicalities, we're not. But dropping Geneva and civil punishments on blasphemy in America would be one of the best things that could ever happen to our country. And as you were about to say, who cares if it means the overturning of our whole system? Our system is built as we've seen on the tolerance of pitophilia as well as a blasphemy and sodomy. This is a system that deserves to be burnt to the ground. And if we had a hasakaya who was faithful and a jessiah that was faithful and did things that I really doubt in their day, in that day, I Stephen Wolf would be very pleased with because they seem very impractical. Like burning the bones of the priests upon their altars. Then it may be that things go very poorly for just size administration after that because the people really don't like that kind of action. Well, that's not what happened. But say it did with A. I have been wrong. I don't think so. I don't think so. There are certain things that are just so evil. And we just have to deal with them in an extreme fashion, no matter what or who says otherwise. The whole world and the stability of the country just ignore it. We're going to do right no matter what happens. That insistence on the urgency of moral action is, I believe, lacking here. Agreed. Yeah, full agreement. It just reminds you of Jeremy Coral kind of, yeah, this self-sensory. Stephen Wolf praised Jeremy Coral. Why would you take John Calvin and use him as a shield like this? Why would you do that? I don't understand the impulse. I don't understand if you're trying to recover historic reform Christian politics, you would take like one of the premier political situations and perhaps the premier reformed theologian who worked with the magistrate and use him not as a model, but use him in your introduction where you're setting the tone for the whole work. And you use him as a shield like these guys do with Clarence Thomas when they come to talk about race and nation. What are you doing guys? What possesses you to make you think that this is profitable? It looks weak. You look weak. When you do this, you look embarrassed of your own tradition that's one that you say you're trying to recover. You're sitting here basically apologizing for it. Honestly, yeah, it would be better probably if we had a lot of the things that Geneva did. I mean, just imagine if we had that with respect to like social media, all these little turds who are always finding their way into smearing you online, they wouldn't be doing that. They like have their tongues cut out or something, which would be great. I'd love to see that. Or they'd remember someone who did far worse than them having their tongue cut out and it would help them hold their tongue. Right. That wouldn't be disasters that would be like, man, we finally got some moral restraint. How long does it take? Absolutely. Sometimes I thought that our problems in our country could be solved by just a handful of public executions like hanging on the lawn of the White House. Yeah. I agree. Or an a hood, you know, going out and taking the out some of the lawns. I like, just desire that I pray for that Lord give us a couple of a hoods. These just rogue. But righteous men are going to go out there and they're going to take out key targets who are in, you know, power positions. Yeah. I will, I'll take that. Yeah. I will take that over. Yeah. Drag queen story hour. Not these other things. I don't know guys. You got to, you can't do this. It's just, uh, it's like something you would read from Carl Truman or something like that, you know, dropping a six century, even law book would be disastrous. Yeah. Why do you need that? Similar to how people argue against theonomy. Oh, dropping the civil law of ancient Israel into America making it the modern constitution would be disastrous. Well, every day the Theanum S for all their errors of principle are looking more sane. And the fact is their system was not strong enough. They didn't want to drop enough of the Old Testament law into America. And when you read American jurisprudence like in the New England Puritans, they did a lot of dropping of the Old Testament civil law into American politics. And many believed, I'm sad it's not said here, that even the civil penalties, even the death penalty for all the various sins was so important. These sins were so great that in every time and place they deserve the death penalty. And that one reason God told us about that in the Old Testament was to be a guide to other civil, civil policies, even in various different times and places. But they don't speak like that here. Yeah. I mean, being as charitable as possible. Okay. Maybe they're trying to find something from history relevant to the reformed tradition to display their distinctions between the principle and the circumstances. Okay, granted. I just really, I don't, I don't think that this was really the way to go about it. Yeah. Next paragraph. Sure. I'll keep going. Is it my turn to read? Yeah. Furthermore, failing to act prudently is itself immoral. Hey, that's what we've said about interracial marriage. Political reasoning is a process of discovery, discovering in the circumstances, which political acts are proper and necessary to the achievement of political ends. Upon discovering these ends, the magistrate is morally bound to enact promulgate and enforce them. In this way, the moral determination of an act is prior to the magistrate himself as to the order of being who is charged with acquiring knowledge of them and acting in accordance. In other words, when prudence determines proper moral action, the magistrate must act. And then doing so, he wills a good that has been morally determined prior to his will. If he fails to act, however, he sends both against God and the people for he fails to promote the common good to the extent that circumstances allow. So I'll just say this is good to read because it's saying that the right action for a civil magistrate proceeds him. It does not originate from his mind. It's not that the magistrate makes what is right or good he has to discover it. And that is why the pundit online, even with no political office can and ought to opine with wisdom about political means and policies. That is a good thing and no one should be opposing that. The guy online can be more correct about what President Trump should do than President Trump himself and many often are. Yeah, my only question is if there's a question of prudence in the man, but he's convinced of the principle and believes that God can still bring good out of it. Should he act? In other words, if he's not sure about the prudence of a matter, but he's keen to convince us the principle and he wants to do good, he believes God can still bring good out of it. Should he act? You know, this is where you do have to be aware of sort of rationalism. Like what level of prudence is required? Is there a percentage? How do you quantify that? And like what's your justification for that? And they may say, well, I'm being rationalist in demanding that, well, no, I'm just trying to scrutinize to try to show you again, like in concrete, you can't always know, like even me as a father and husband, I make the best decision I can. Now, maybe that's part of what they mean by prudence. And if so, okay, that's fine, but that's not necessarily what I take by that word. Yes, I see it can be abused to paralyze men so that until they're 100% sure that this will bring the best possible world to pass. They shouldn't act. Right. Sometimes you have to act in faith. You don't fully know. You trust the Lord. You have to make it for it. Because a decision has to be made. So you use the light you have trusting the Lord. Yeah, yeah, that's important. Okay, last paragraph before the next section. Today's discourse on Christian politics or Christian nationalism would greatly improve. If we understood the relationships among genus species and individual acts as they pertain to promoting true religion, as discussed, described above. I agree with that. I don't only qualify it in this respect. The discussion would improve among the more intellectually and academically oriented. But expecting other people to grasp and care about these things is naive. It's not going to happen. Many of our opponents, including modern two kingdom advocates, deny the promotion of religion at the level of genus. Some may affirm a modified genus, namely civil government must promote natural religion. You can find this in John Locke and many particular Baptists. Others may reject certain species of acts. For example, suppressing false religion, punishing atheism, atheism, reforming and corrupt church, correcting airing ministers. Though these objections are usually rhetorical means to deny the genus. Many people focus on prudential considerations, saying, for example, we don't want wars of religion again, but they almost always fail to recognize both the must of the principle, namely they fail to refute the principle, and the contingent nature of means to end. Not everything that is morally permissible in the abstract is prudent in the concrete. And in many circumstances, the constrained promotion of religion may be the only moral option. Too many people, even those who are credentialed, titled and educated, assume that promoting true religion must entail a confessional state with an established church and the extensive suppression of heresy and dissenting brethren. And as we make clear, that's not our goal for the United States. So trust us, we're not the bad Christian nationalists. Well, yeah, you can say that. We're not those kind of Christian nationalists. We're not the kind that our reformers were when they drown the Antibaptists. Don't worry. Yeah. There I can extend some understanding, because there are bapses today that are they're just not they're not like Antibaptists. They're not radical fanatics. You know, yeah, I agree with you on that. I was using it as an Antibaptist in the historic sense, but yes. Let's see. I mean, I I think our enemies, we've gotten to this before. Our enemies are usually wider than we give them credit for. They think concretely, which is not necessarily bad thing. You can talk about the theory of government must promote religion, but all they can think about is religious wars. Well, that's actually not a bad chain of logic, because in this age, a government in serious fashion promoting the Christian religion would likely incite a religious war. That's that's a fair logic. I don't think the liberals are wrong to say that. They're wrong to be afraid of it. They're wrong to imply that a religious war would not be worth fighting. We're suffering through, but they're not wrong to say that. And these guys are saying, oh, well, we don't mean that. You know, the means don't necessarily follow from the principle, well, yeah, they kind of do. There are natural logical outcomes, practically, to this principle. And all you're saying that that's that you don't intend that will not keep it from coming to pass. Yeah, I see your point. The sentence here, not everything that is morally permissible in the abstract is prudent and the concrete concrete. Obviously, you and I agree with that as a proposition. Definitely. The question is what should be your rhetorical presentation in the midst of the crises that we're facing in the West? Yes, in academics, in methodology, philosophy, politics, all those things disciplines thereof, granted, but also the concrete political situation. And that's where applied prudence may mean a more forceful, frank sort of rhetoric less reserved, less detached. There are idiosyncratic differences too. You and I are bent this way. That's fine. We're kind of hunchy and just say it sort of fellous. And others are not that for various reasons. Sometimes that's just a difference of personality. Other times there are real moral problems there. And each man needs to examine himself. I mean, I'm fine with saying that people do assume that promoting true religion means you've got to have confessional state, established church, suppression of heresy, descending brethren. There are people who obviously think that. I'm not for that. I'm not for whatever suppressing or persecuting of Baptists or Lutherans. I'm for certainly limiting Roman Catholicism, but even that, I'm hesitant somewhat to politically speaking, like suppress that, at least at present. We've discussed some of this before, like positive Christianity or even our present circumstances. So I want to be fair to all that, but there is, yeah, there's a point to be made about your rhetorical presentation. And it's just leave it there. Good. Well, we have the next section is just a summer of the contents. So we could just leave this as a good stopping point because they basically just summarize all the rest of the chapters. That could leave us open to considering the chapters if we want to do this. Again, do you want to go through it? Or should we just wait? Go through the entire report? No, this the chapter summaries. That's what comes next. All the contents, the summary of contents. We could maybe just do the highlights. Well, I'll just summarize the contents of the paragraph or the chapters. I'll summarize all of them here and then we can talk about anyone's that jump out. So in the introduction, they have a chapter of reformed political theory and they argue for their main proposition that civil government must promote true religion. In chapter two, it's South American Presbyterians on civil government. They look at the views of 18th and 19th century American Presbyterians and their role on the magistrate. And they argue that they didn't repudiate the magistrate's role, but rather adapted it to the circumstances that there were some exceptions. In chapter three, they talk about the American revisions from 1788 to the Westminster Confession. And as you can read from Wolf elsewhere, they think that they are, they keep the same principles of the original standards, but are simply adapting them to the American context. I think I'd have a little criticism of that, but we could talk about that later. Chapter four is regarding the spirituality of the church, saying the church's mission is primarily spiritual and that there are limits, therefore, on church power and political involvement. And then they, in chapter five, critique theology and analyze the reformed traditions, understanding of the Mosaic law, especially as it was codified in the Westminster Confession of faith, which would that be useful. In chapter six, they could treat critique the modern reformed two kingdoms position, especially in its chief proponent, David Van Drunen, who relied heavily on Meredith Klein. And then in chapter seven, they summarize Wolf's book, The Case for Christian Nationalism, and they explain its success and conclude with a list of misconceptions and denials. And this makes sense, given the practical purpose of this document, which is to be an aid, especially to the PCA, as they are having a study committee report this summer on Christian nationalism and no doubt on Stephen's book. So this is, in part, an attempt to clear his name and to clear that book from the many misconceptions that surround it. And I think that's honorable and noble for these men to do that work. And then it says, finally in the last chapter, we summarize the key points of this report and offer pastoral applications for nape park churches. So that's a summary of all this to come. - Yeah, it looks like a pretty thorough report. I don't know that I'll read it all. Some of this stuff I'm already familiar with. And then some of it, I'm just not super interested in, like as an academic thing. I mean, if the report is much like the introduction, yeah, I would say it's more, definitely more academically oriented formal. And there's nothing wrong with that. It's just not something that really commands my interest right now in terms of this specific subject, spend some time in it anyway, with the reading and editing I have to do for sacrifice. I will say the church section chapter four. Yeah, I wonder if they consider the church beyond just this institutional aspect. Because the terms that I have used is, there's the institutional church or the church's institution. And then there's the organic church or the church has an organism. And yeah, the focus of the institutional church is on word sacrament discipline, the dispensation of the gospel and such things. But the organic church, so excuse me, so therefore the institutional church, it really isn't focused on the political realm, but the organic church that is all Christians engaged in the real world, the real world who are undertaking good works. Yeah, they definitely have a relation to the political. I mean, and the church is made up of men and men are political creatures and they have a natural duty, politically speaking. So I wonder if that's touched on at all. I mean, I might have to dip into that section, but it's one where I do think there's often confusion and even sometimes an undue limit to what the church can and cannot do, politically speaking. Yeah, I'd be interested in considering that too. I think most interesting to me would be the last chapter with pastoral applications for Neapark churches. I like to see what they have to say to Neapark. My fear is that it's going to be healing the wounds slightly. The wound of Neapark is very, very deep. And it may be that through the reaction to this report that the authors will find that out and they will have some of their naivety about Neapark removed. I actually hope it will be so and that the Lord will use that to help them be stronger. That's needed throughout the church today. Yeah, I hope the same. I think I saw something from Eli McGowan. It seems like he's in Cahoots with the PCA study committee on Christian nationalism and I'm pretty sure. He said something about them, I'm basically condemning it. And I'm not surprised at all. It's to be expected. They've not been serious here to four. Why would they just like magically start being serious all the sudden or honest or whatever? There's massive repentance that needs to take place. That's right. Yeah, the Lord can do it, but we don't have any hope in these men. Yep. And yeah, he's trying to, I saw, he's also talked about sacripress, sacri-guerus. And Stephen will wrote some stuff for sacripress. Oh no, who cares? It may he lies all the time. It's a roll of it. But this is what happens. And you're preening it, you know, where these people don't care. You qualify, preening and say, I'm not this, I'm not that. We don't mean this, we don't mean that. And that's useful for the people who want to fully understand your comprehensive thought, but to your enemies, it means absolutely nothing. That's right. Thanks, Gary. This has been good. Anything else you want to say before we finish? No, I just, well, yeah, there's this end on this note. You know, any criticisms intended in good faith, but I think that speaking, I think speaking for both of us, you can tell me from wrong, we've been patient for a while. We're trying to say a bit more that we otherwise might not say that came out, you know, whatever recently with the Jeremy Carl stuff. And maybe some of this as well. And we think that what we've said is valid. It's useful. It needs to be said. And that's why we say it. We say it in charity, but also in frankness and for the profit of others. So that's well, how we want it to be received? I agree with that entirely. Good. Well, and the Lord blesses to our hears. And this has been the O-Paths podcast. # Foundations be destroyed # # What have the righteous done # # God in His holy temple # # This in heaven is His throne # # His eyes do see # # His eyelids try # # Men sons the justy proofs # # But His soul hates our wicked men # # And in that violence last # # Snares fire and brims # # Don't you're just storms # # On sin or tea shall rain # # This has the portion of their cup # # Da thon to them pertain # # Because the Lord most righteous stuff # # In righteousness, delight # # And with a pleasant countenance # # We holdeth thee upright #