Douglas Wilson's Letter From America

A Holy Ghost Mashup

Political Dualism - Mere Christendom
Written by Douglas Wilson
Saturday, October 09, 2010

At the begining of his Republocrat, Carl Trueman says quite rightly "that religious conservatism does not demand unconditional political conservatism."

The word conserve is a transitive verb, and there is no virtue or vice in any transitive verb. So you love, but what do you love? God? Ice cream? Child porn? The church you were baptized in? Your favorite pair of jeans? So you conserve, but what is it you want to conserve? The Kremlin Old Guard? Redwoods? Your stock options? The legacy of the first Christendom?

So you want to progress? Great. Where? To what end, and by what standard?

Trueman's book begins with the premise that whatever political critter we wind up being, it will be some genetically engineered combination of a donkey and an elephant. The politics of us in the kingdom must arise from some combination of the options offered to us by the worldlings.

I, along with Trueman, do want to offer a mashup of political options. But what I want to combine is the accomplishments of the Holy Spirit thus far in the growth of Christendom, maintaining what is still here, and recovering that which once here and needs to be brought back. In that sense I am conservative.

In another sense, I am progressive, wanting to move forward to all the political blessings set forth by the prophet Isaiah. I don't want a chicken in every pot, but rather a feast of fat things on the mountain of the Lord, a feast of wine on the lees, and of fat things full of marrow (Is. 25:6). In that sense I am a progressive.

If Jesus didn't do it through His Spirit, it is not worth conserving, and if Jesus isn't working toward that end by means of His Spirit, it isn't worth working toward either.

So this is a conservatism calculated to biff on the side of the head the most air-brushed Republican talking point out there, mess up his hair, and get him completely off message. This is a potent and virulent conservatism.

And it is a progressivism that actually has a scriptural definition of what might constitute progress, and hence is the sort of thing to make your average radical go white in the face. He starts yelling about theocracy, not because he is opposed to theocracy, but rather because he wanted the state to be that god, not Jesus. A bit of tough luck for him because the state wasn't crucified, and didn't come back from the dead on the third day.

Jesus did, and so we should listen to Him.