Douglas Wilson's Letter From America

Avoid that Bummer

Political Dualism - Mere Christendom
Written by Douglas Wilson
Saturday, July 10, 2010

Many of our prophetic voice brethren are willing, like Jonah, to speak truth to power. They, also like Jonah, would be entirely flummoxed if power listens to them.

Jonah's reluctance to preach to Nineveh was not driven by cowardice, or anything like that. He hated Nineveh, a godless power, an oppressor of Jonah's people, and he knew that if he preached to them, there was a very real risk that they might repent, and that God might accept their repentance. And repent they did (Matt. 12:41), and Jonah's complaint was one he anticipated. Isn't this disaster what I said would happen (Jonah 4:2)? If there is one thing worse than a godless Ninevite power structure, that would be a Constantinian Ninevite power structure. Hear what I'm sayin'?

And so here is the trick. If your whole schtick is that of being a prophetic voice, then you have to figure out what to do about the off-chance of real repentance. If that happened, then not only would the Ninevites repent in dust and ashes, but your whole political theology would have to repent in dust and ashes also, and that would be a bummer. Whatever happens, we have to keep our radical political theology. If we want to keep our theology cutting edge, we have to make sure it never cuts anything.

And so it is necessary to configure the preaching in such a way that repentance is structurally impossible. Define Constantinianism as a heresy, and figure out ways to identify the presence of that heresy regardless of what happens. Find it in coercion, and find it in the soft coercion of no coercion. Find it in established churches, and find it nations where the churches are not established, but are influential. Find it where the churches are marginalized, and not influential at all. Meet the challenge! Find it when the magistrate goes right, when he goes left, and when he stays put. Whatever you do, find that heresy, and you can soothe your ruffled Jonah feathers with this. Nineveh didn't really repent.