Douglas Wilson's Letter From America

Seven Post Mortem Principles 

Politics Written by Douglas Wilson
Wednesday, 07 November 2012


1. The first principle is not just that Jesus is Lord. That wonderful phrase is our foundational confession; it is not simply a sweet sentiment to tide us over until the sweet by and by. Rather we must say that Jesus is the Lord of history, and so He is the one who gave this electoral outcome to us. We don't fully know why He did, but we know that He did.

2. Given the wickedness of key elements in Obama's agenda (abortion, sodomy, thievery through taxation, etc.) we know that whatever the Lord is doing, it is for judgment and not for blessing. And in Scripture, whenever judgment is pending, or has begun, the appropriate response is repentance -- not mobilization or organizing our remaining tatters.


Postmillennial optimism does not mean the world gets better without repentance. It means that the gospel is powerful to save, and when the gospel is preached rightly it comes in the form of "repent and believe." Repent of what? Repent of our sins. Believe what? Believe in Jesus Christ, crucified and risen.

3. No principled vote cast yesterday, offered in faith before the Lord, was a wasted vote. Those who went to the polls with true faith in Christ and a sincere commitment to do what His Word required of them offered up a vote that was part of their living sacrifice (Rom. 12:1-2). And if He received it, so should we -- even if the vote cast differed from our own.

4. Every unprincipled vote, offerred to the bitch goddess of the state on the left, or the bitch goddess of pragmatism on the soft right, or the bitch goddess of ideology on the libertarian right, was simply thrown away. Professing Christians who voted for Obama were either confusedly or rebelliously heaping up judgment for all of us. Christians on the right who voted for Romney for no other reason than that he was "electable" found out that he was not as electable as all that. And Christians who voted for absolute ideological purity (which is, remember, a form of impurity) found out that that kind of purity wasn't in the running.

5. Consistent biblical thinking required us to be preparing to oppose the proposals of either a re-elected Obama or a newly-elected Romney. In my judgment, opposition to Obama will be much tougher, which is why I would have preferred to have been opposing Romney. But if the Lord has given us the tougher assignment, our responsibility is to take up that tougher assignment with a gladness that submits to His will.
So my predictions of a Romney victory did not proceed from support for Romney. I didn't want to vote for Romney, and I didn't. I didn't want to work for Romney, and I didn't. I was preparing myself to oppose either Obama and Romney, and would have preferred to go against Romney.

6. If you want this conservative to vote with you, stop trying to entice me with non-conservatives. Stop trying to feed bacon to your horse. One of the numbing numbers to come out of this fiasco is the fact that if Romney had simply gotten the same number of votes that McCain did, Romney would have won. This deflation happened without a robust third party candidate siphoning off a large number of votes. The results of this election should not cause us to think we need to "move to the center." Two establishment Republican candidates in a row have gone down, and this second time the centrist lost to a failed presidency. I mean, think about it.

7. Some of the post-mortems will rightly focus on particular political judgments made (e.g. the alienation of Ron Paul supporters). But the long game requires us to be thinking in broader cultural ways, not explicitly political ways. Here are several examples.

Over the next four years our energies should be focused on getting all Christian kids out of the government schools. If your kids are educated by people who are soft in the head, why would you expect them to grow up and not vote for people who are soft in the head? Students become like their teachers (Luke 6:40). Don't lament the fact that Obama won if over 90% of your children's teachers voted for him.

We also need Christians with a thorough-going biblical worldview writing good books, making good movies, and recording good music. As I have argued before, you can't have a naval war without ships, you can't have tank warfare without tanks, and you can't fight a culture war without a culture. And by Christian culture, incidentally, I do not mean pious schlock and I do not mean hipster poses with extra mousse in your hair to make it stick up.

So don't despair. As the Marine general said in the Korean conflict, when his forces were completely outnumbered and surrounded with Chinese troops -- "Well, they can't get away now!"
When the history of our time is written, and they are trying to describe us, we should want historians to have to use the word irrepressible.