Dr. Biggar was Regius Professor of Moral and Pastoral Theology at the University of Oxford from 2007 to 2022. This January, he became a baron and a Conservative member of the House of Lords.
Lord Biggar of Castle Douglas (as he is now known) is a modern example of the intellectual man of action and a Christian realist. I was very inspired by his words, in which he commended and justified this very calling to his audience:
I am aware that I opted for an academic career partly because I have a certain personality: quite cautious, wanting time to observe and reflect and work things out, unwilling to decide until fully ready, careful to cover and protect every angle, averse to risk. (Well, at least I used to be!) Such a personality develops a characteristic set of virtues, of course, but it is not well suited to making momentous and risky decisions under intense pressure. I have a great deal of respect, therefore, for other people, no less intelligent than I, who have chosen—or been fated to choose—careers and roles that are heavy with front-line responsibility and light with the leisure to reflect. I sympathise very greatly with those whom Reinhold Niebuhr nicely called “the burden-bearers of the world”.
Those of us whose personality inclines us toward study may relish the virtues of slow, careful thought. But we must not look down on those who shoulder responsibilities that require quicker decision-making on matters of great weight, risking error.
Yet, in sympathizing with those in power, many worry that intellectuals will become but tools of power:
[When] Cian O’Driscoll…wrote that just war theorists like me are inevitably part of “the war-machine” that we are trying to constrain, and that we therefore stand in danger of coming so close to the flame of power that we get burnt by it, I protested. I understand what he means. Institutions do acquire a momentum of their own—sometimes perverse—that is hard to stop, and well-meaning individuals need to take care lest they get carried away. Nevertheless, it struck me that where Cian saw a machine, I saw faces—the faces of friends in public office, who are, I think, more morally reflective and sensitive than the average citizen, humbler, less sanctimonious, and who have shouldered responsibilities and taken risks that academics like me have chosen careers to evade. It is widely recognised among academics that remoteness from the exercise of executive power yields the important advantage of critical distance. What is less recognised is that it also occasions a grave temptation—a temptation to relish too much the self-flattering role of righteous prophet, to indulge in wishful thinking, to daydream among the ‘what-ifs’, and never to grasp the necessary nettle.
The intellectual’s critical distance can also be an occasion of pride and self-righteousness.
A few paragraphs later, Dr. Biggar references Augustine as a theologian keenly aware of the dangers of making ethical and political judgments, especially when lives, and one’s own ethical purity, hang in the balance.
But:
Augustine did not flee. He did not run away. He stayed. He continued to shoulder the responsibilities of bishop, which, as the Roman Empire crumbled around him, were increasingly those of government. He kept up pastoral correspondence with military tribunes like Boniface and Marcellinus, whose Christian consciences were troubled by what they had to do. With them he lamented the tragic dilemmas of political life, but he did not flinch from facing them. He staggered onward, rejoicing.
And note: none of this prevented Augustine from developing the prophetic critique of the Roman Empire that became The City of God. He stands, therefore, as a shining example of one who took the risk of coming close to the flame of power and yet was not consumed by it—of one who risked played pastor and yet could still play prophet.
In our youth, it is easy to criticize those in authority as pawns in a system. Especially as an intellectual or academic, one can wield one’s faculties of judgment upon others, while evading judgment ourselves. Having not yet assumed worldly responsibility, no one could pin any blame upon us for compromise with the system.
But the task of mature manhood is to unite thought and action. Having reflected and come to judgments that are truly one’s own, we must embody those thoughts in action. In doing so, our thoughts must themselves compromise with the messy reality in which we live.
The man of action is, therefore, a sinner. Bonhoeffer writes:
“Jesus took upon Himself the guilt of all men, and for that reason every man who acts responsibly becomes guilty. If any man tries to escape guilt in responsibility, … He sets his own personal innocence above his responsibility for men, and he is blind for the more irredeemable guilt which he incurs precisely in this.” (Ethics, 241)
Bonhoeffer, good Lutheran that he was, comforted us that the doctrine of justification by faith frees us to sin boldly, as we must.
Please give “The Spirit of Truth,” from Lord Nigel Biggar, a listen (or a read).
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Lord Biggar now writes a Substack, The Biggar Picture. Give him a subscribe!
Watch my and King Laugh’s interview with Dr. Biggar, “God Is in the World, Not Just the Bible,” here:
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Jesus Asks of Us More than Jordan Peterson
Monday, March 3, 2025 • Duration 19:56
In his opening address to the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC), Jordan Peterson argued that the Christian foundation for civilization is this:
“Reciprocal, voluntary self-sacrifice.”
Peterson illustrated with the form of sacrifice we all learn first:
When a child learns to make a friend, he learns necessarily, the principle of sacrificial reciprocity.
“I have a turn, then you have a turn. I have a turn, then you have a turn.”
The sacrifice there is that it’s not always my turn.
And that sacrificial reciprocity is the…foundational principle of the reciprocity upon which even the most primordial forms of society…are predicated.
Reciprocal self-sacrifice is fundamental to political society. The kind of sacrifice Peterson praises requires us to transcend hedonism and self-absorption.
[Last week, I reacted to Peterson’s ARC address in this post.]
Societies that cannot establish reciprocity and the ability to sacrifice one for another, and one’s present for one’s future, remain mired in hedonism. Collectively, they remain in barbarism.
To achieve civilization, humans must rise to the level of reciprocal self-sacrifice:
The principle of voluntary upward self sacrifice [is] the foundation of the community, as the foundation of abundance itself, as the precondition for the trust and reciprocity that enables us to compete and to cooperate so that we can produce societies that are endlessly productive.
Now many criticize Peterson for instrumentalizing religion, either for psychology or politics. (Last week, subscriber Paul P. sent me this Catholic example.)
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In his book, Kennedy argues that the current understanding of worldview is faulty. It envisions a Christian worldview as something that can be downloaded and deployed at the outset of Christian education. On the contrary, Kennedy argues that a Christian worldview is something that is built gradually by the process of education and exploration of God’s world.
After reading and reviewing Kennedy’s book, I had to have him on to discuss where the idea of a Christian worldview goes wrong - and what it still gets right. We discuss its ties to philosophical idealism and presuppositional apologetics, try to sort through Kuyper’s contribution, and explore an alternative, which he and I agree is Christian realism.
Enjoy the conversation! You can also watch on YouTube or listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Just search for “The Flâneur and the Philosopher.”
Simon P. Kennedy is a Resident Fellow at the University of Queensland and non-resident fellow at the Danube Institute. He writes on X at @spkenn1 and at Academia.edu at https://uq.academia.edu/SimonKennedy.
Chapters
00:00 Introduction
7:16 The Presuppositionalist Phase
17:45 Where Worldview Goes Wrong
24:55 What’s Up w/ Kuyper?
32:46 A "Combat Concept"
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Is the Evangelical Church Guilty of Marriage Idolatry?
Monday, November 25, 2024 • Duration 01:37:04
In the context of secular, individualist culture, the American evangelical church has put a premium on marriage. Yet critics from within and without evangelicalism have accused Christians of treating marriage and the nuclear family in idolatrous ways.
Our guests this week, David Frank and TJ Espinoza, argue that the church has neglected forms of kinship beyond marriage and the nuclear family - which is particularly damaging to same-sex attracted Christians, like themselves. David and TJ are the co-hosts of the podcast “New Kinship” where they discuss life as celibate, gay Christians and the possibilities of kinship, community, and belonging that remain for them.
King Laugh and I are straight Christians, both married with children. However, we have witnessed kinds of marriage and family idolatry that affect us as well. Nuclear families are often separated from their extended families. Marriage and family are often taken to be a fix-all, rather than one of several crosses to bear. The marriage relationship is often assumed to bear too much weight, one’s spouse one’s only friend.
Together, we discuss ways that the church could support married and unmarried people alike by expanding its vision of community beyond marriage and nuclear families. Enjoy!
Aaron M. Renn wrote in a 2018 newsletter, “Marriage is normative for Christians and the vast majority of Christians are not called or suited for a celibate life.” Aaron has mounted a cogent critique of talk of marriage and family idolatry. Churches can often call things “idolatry” that are just natural human desires, and significant ones. See his article on “.”
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When I was a child, I spoke like a child
Monday, November 11, 2024 • Duration 01:14:53
“When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.” - 1 Corinthians 13:11
Have you ever been in a conversation with someone and thought, “This is a conversation I used to have. It’s even one I used to put a lot of stock in. But I no longer think it’s where the action is really at”?
There are some ways of dealing with ideas, of speaking, and of thinking that we have to learn from and then move beyond, argues this week’s podcast guest, Matthew Stanley. Stanley calls these “transitional discourses.” Psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott had argued that children utilize transitional objects, like their thumb, blankie, or stuffed animal to replicate the security of the mother as they transition to independence. What if some forms of intellectual practice are like that as well?
Thus, the goal of the transitional object is to fall away. Eventually, the blankie is forgotten, folded up, and tucked away in a closet somewhere. The transitional object has served its role faithfully when it can be left behind, signaling that the child has internalized those functions which the transitional object had to supply externally.
The question becomes though, what happens when our transitional object stick around to long? And could certain discourses and regimes of practice in a religious community serve the role of something like a transitional object in people's lives in the broader process of their becoming more human?
-Matthew Stanley, “Transitional discourses and getting (un)stuck”
Matthew Stanley is a writer at Samsara Diagnostics and whose work sits at the intersection of psychoanalysis, Buddhism, and Christian theology. A graduate of Wheaton College, he is the author of (yes, like the Martin Scorsese film) and a book of poetry, .
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Can We Make Sense of Nature and Politics without God?
Thursday, September 12, 2024 • Duration 01:49:42
Dr. James Orr, Associate Professor of Philosophy of Religion at the Faculty of Divinity of the University of Cambridge, joins the flâneur and the philosopher for a wide-ranging discussion of the philosophy of nature and Christian involvement in politics. We first discuss Dr. Orr’s interesting path from the practice of law to a professorship in the philosophy of religion.
Following an introduction to Dr. Orr’s career, the conversation divides into two parts: A discussion of the philosophy of nature, the object of much of Dr. Orr’s academic work, and a discussion of his Christian involvement in political discourse. Through both parts of the conversation, the question of whether the natural realm can be understood, at a first pass, without God remains central.
Concerning the philosophy of nature, Dr. Orr has argued for a Neo-Aristotelian account of nature, on which the various substances that make up the natural realm possess natures and causal powers. This is contrast to the popular secular Neo-Humean view, which says that what appear to be natural laws are merely coincidental regularities. But it also contrasts with a popular Christian occasionalist view, on which created things have no causal power but are mere puppets, whose strings God pulls.
However, in the political sphere, Dr. Orr argues that the philosophy of liberalism, in both its modern and classical varieties, has run out. The project of a neutral state governing the common life of communities with competing metaphysics, religions, and conceptions of the good, has failed. The divides between worldviews and communities are too deep to be bridged by purportedly neutral and fair procedures, apart from any cultural or metaphysical backing. Accordingly, Christian involvement in politics must be forthrightly Christian, even while allowing for and requiring charity toward those with whom we disagree.
Enjoy this interesting conversation with a leading Christian philosopher.
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Pulpit Supply-Chain Issues
Wednesday, July 31, 2024 • Duration 01:26:09
The flâneur and the philosopher are joined this week by Jack Wilkie, author of the Church Reset Substack, and of a book by the same name, Church Reset: God’s Design for So Much More. Jack was previously a pastor in the Churches of Christ but has since focused on his writing ministry and his podcast, Think Deeper.
Jack recently wrote a post titled, “Why I Won’t Be Encouraging My Sons Toward Ministry.” We discuss with him why this is, and why he left pastoral ministry himself.
We discuss the nature of the pastoral role as well as the current pulpit supply-chain, taking uprooted young men and placing them around the country in a Christian brain-drain. We consider the sacred-secular divide this creates and offer some alternative models of church and discipleship.
* The current system of filling pulpits in churches is flawed and disconnected from the rest of the church community.
* There is a need for a more organic, homegrown approach to leadership development in churches.
* Small churches should focus on training and equipping their own leaders instead of relying on hiring pastors from outside the congregation.
* The emphasis should be on the quality of leadership and the growth and maturity of the church, rather than the size of the building or the number of attendees.
* Finding the right church involves considering factors such as the spiritual health of the congregation, the influence on family and children, and the opportunity for active participation.
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God Is in the World, Not Just the Bible
Wednesday, July 10, 2024 • Duration 01:11:46
It was my and King Laugh’s privilege to speak with Dr. Nigel Biggar about doing theology from experience.
In his recent book Colonialism: A Moral Reckoning and in previous books like In Defence of War, Dr. Biggar’s biblical and theological erudition has been matched by his philosophical rigor - and especially by his knowledge of history. Doing work that not even historians dare to do, Dr. Biggar has brought moral wisdom, especially from the Christian tradition, to bear on contemporary debates.
At the same time, his engagement with history and empirical observation of the human condition has brought experience to bear on Christian theology. We discuss the consequences of Bible-only theology and the need to advert to empirical sources. The legacy of colonialism is considered, and the need to avoid ideological thinking both of the secular progressive type and the insular Christian kind.
Dr. Biggar is Emeritus Regius Professor of Moral and Pastoral Theology at the University of Oxford. He is the author of many books, including In Defence of War, Behaving in Public: How to Do Christian Ethics, and What’s Wrong with Rights?
Read King Laugh’s Letters to the Seven Churches of Pine County
Like a latter day apostle John, King Laugh has been composing seven letters to the churches of Pine county. Therein, you will find love for the church and biting critique, not unlike the letters of Revelation, or the prose of the wittiest satirists. Read carefully!
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The Exvangelicals Are Right About Something
Thursday, June 13, 2024 • Duration 01:25:21
Dr. Miles Smith IV, Associate professor of history at Hillsdale College, joined the King and I for a conversation about what we can learn from Ex-vangelical narratives. “Ex-vangelicals” have been deconstructing for several years, whether to leave the faith altogether or to become a different kind of Christian. In all cases, the object of critique is the particular subculture of 80s and 90s evangelical Christianity.
With historical perspective and Protestant conviction, Dr. Miles Smith IV agrees with much of the ex-vangelical critique, but with a different conclusion: Historic Protestantism was never well-represented by 80s and 90s evangelicalism. That movement was much more shaped by history, politics, and sociology than the faithful would like to admit.
As always, our conversation came back to the church, pastors, and laypeople, but with new insights about the 20th century rise of American Protestant clericalism. Enjoy this enlightening discussion with Miles Smith.
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The Christian Life: A Walk in the Park? A Conversation with a Gay Christian
Wednesday, June 5, 2024 • Duration 01:18:40
Colton Beach joins us to speak about his experience as a gay Christian, committed to the traditional Christian sexual ethic, in the church. For Colton’s personal backstory, check out his interview with Preston Sprinkle. I learned about Colton when we both attended our first Revoice conference in June 2023, which I wrote about here.
We talk with Colton about the analogy between accepting chronic illness and admitting one is gay. We ask why Reformed, gospel-centered churches revert to a prosperity gospel when faced with same-sex attraction. We ask questions about the goods of celibacy and marriage in the Christian life.
Central to our conversation is the theology of sanctification or Christian spiritual growth: Does growing mean being tempted less, or obeying more even if temptation continues? Was Jesus Christ an asexual, or a man subject to the desires and infirmities of our human nature? The implications are many and deep.
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This criticism misses the mark, though not because Peterson’s focus transcends psychology or politics, but because Peterson is right about psychology and politics.
But there is one place where Peterson errs.
At least in this speech, he interprets the fundamental principle of Christianity as reciprocal self-sacrifice. Reciprocal sacrifice, like that of the child above, exhibits natural justice, the kind of mutuality and “giving to each his due” on which political society is indeed founded.
Yet, following the great opponents of civilizational Christianity, Tolstoy and Kierkegaard, Paul Kingsnorth has argued that the Christian ethic is not the kind of mutual back-scratching that founds a civilization and leads to GDP growth. It is a kind of self-sacrifice that incurs loss and is folly from a worldly or civilizational perspective.
And in this, Kingsnorth et al. have more than a grain of exegetical truth:
If you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that. And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, expecting to be repaid in full. But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. (Luke 6:33-35)
We could update it: “If you sacrifice five minutes with your toy in order to gain five other minutes with your toy, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that.”
In other words, the ethic of reciprocal sacrifice, i.e., natural justice, is not the distinctively Christian ethic. It is the natural law. And even sinners, Gentiles, and non-Christians often abide by it.
What then is the distinctively Christian ethic? And how does it relate to reciprocal sacrifice and the natural law?
The New Commandment
Christ frequently affirms that what he is teaching does not abolish but fulfills the old law and the creation order:
Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. — Matthew 5:17
“Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, 5 and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? 6 So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” — Matthew 19:4-6
He said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. — Matthew 19:8
Jesus reaffirmed the moral law, of the Old Testament and of nature.
However, at a crucial juncture, Christ told his disciples that he was giving them a new commandment. If he is to be believed, this commandment was not in the Law and the Prophets. It was not man’s duty by nature. And it is not something that even sinners do.
What is it? “That you love one another:” (John 13:34b).
[Brakes screeching]
Hold on, Jesus.
That’s not a new commandment.
It’s in Leviticus 19:18: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
You, Jesus, said that it was the second greatest commandment and, together with “Love the Lord your God,” it summed up the Law and Prophets (Matt 22:36-40).
You can’t actually mean that that commandment is new.
That is a very natural reaction. But there are two problems with it.
* In the next verse, Jesus says that, “By this, all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35).
But wouldn’t it just make you a good Old Testament Hebrew if you loved your neighbor as yourself? It wouldn’t mark you out as a disciple of Christ.
Exactly, so Jesus must be talking about something more.
And,
* You cut me off when I was quoting the first verse: “That you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another” (John 13:34b-c).
“Just as I have loved you.” But wait, Jesus says these words as he’s about to go to the cross to offer his life for the sins of the world.
And Jesus’ sacrifice is radically new in human history.
Jesus’ death was the ultimate act of self-sacrifice. It was not an act of reciprocal self-sacrifice. It was not mutual.
In fact, moments later, Jesus predicted that Peter would not lay his life down for him but deny him three times (John 13:38).
Jesus sacrificed himself for us without expecting anything in return.
And in his new commandment, he asks us to do the same for one another.
The Natural Law and the New Commandment
Now Jordan Peterson might be correct that reciprocal sacrifice is the foundation of civilization. Civilization requires individuals to make sacrifices for each other and for the community as a whole. It rewards these sacrifices with mutual benefit, safety, and prosperity.
But what if Paul Kingsnorth et al. are also correct that Christ’s new commandment demands something at odds with political and economic prudence?
In fact, it appears that they are.
Political peace, for instance, is built on mutually assured destruction.
But Christ says, “Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also” (Matt 5:39).
The modern economy is built on lending at interest, based on expectation of repayment.
But Christ says, “Lend to them without expecting to get anything back” (Luke 6:35).
Natural justice is built on short-term sacrifice for mutual benefit, doing good to those who do good to us.
But Jesus says, “if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that. … But love your enemies, do good to them” (Luke 6:33, 35).
Peterson correctly identifies the ethic that gives a foundation to civilization.
But Kingsnorth correctly identifies that the kind of sacrifice Christ commands contradicts that ethic.
If this is so, then there is an irreconcilable tension between civilization and Christianity.
Tension or Extension?
But the objection to this conclusion comes from Christ’s own lips:
I did not come to abolish [the Law and the Prophets], but to fulfill them. (Matt 5:17)
The new thing Christ brings, both in his atonement and his example and ethic, does not contradict or abolish the law. (Think both Old Testament law and natural law.)
In theological shorthand:
Grace does not abolish nature, but restores and perfects it.
The new commandment doesn’t subtract from the old commandments, Jesus says. The new commandment fulfills and adds to the old:
“For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matt 5:20).
Christ’s new commandment is not in tension with the old; it is an extension beyond the old.
Jesus Christ asks of us even more than Jordan Peterson does.
Three Ways Christ Asks More, But No Less
You can see the new commandment extend beyond the natural law in various dimensions of Christ’s teaching.
i. Marriage and Celibacy
Christ reaffirmed the creation ordinance of marriage, calling the Pharisees back to the first and second chapters of Genesis (Matt 19:1-9).
But he also opened up the possibility of celibacy as an honorable path for the Christian, one that will be greatly rewarded (Matt 19:10-12).
Christ’s reaffirmation of marriage indicates that Aaron Rennis correctto caution the urban church against overplaying the goodness of singleness and underplaying that of marriage and family.
But Christ’s extension of blessing to “eunuchs” indicates that Grant Hartley and other members of Side B, and Sam Allberry are also correct to argue that the church has idolized marriage and family, neglecting the good of celibacy.
We must obey God’s natural law with regard to marriage and sexuality, but we can and must also transcend it.
ii. Christian Economics
On economics, Christian defenders of free market conservatism are right to defend the moral legitimacy of mutual exchange in a market economy. At the same time, critics of economic libertarianism are correct to highlight market failures and inequality of bargaining power in labor markets. So far, natural justice.
But purveyors of redemptive entrepreneurship are also correct to argue that Christian entrepreneurship can and should go beyond fair, mutual exchange. As managing partner at PraxisSajan George argues, while ethical entrepreneurship argues for “I win, you win,” redemptive entrepreneurship holds to the principle of “I lose, you win.”
Rather than being contrary to good business, to practice “self-disadvantaging meaningful sacrifices” requires good business abilities to carry out (Tanner Gesek’s words). One unskilled in business might choose, out of Christian piety, to incur a loss; but, this could simply end his business and ability to exercise generosity and self-sacrifice.
Kingsnorth recounts this reply and responds to it:
After all, as one critic pointed out, if we don’t create wealth, how are we going to distribute it to the poor?
Sheesh. Give me Tolstoy any day of the week. — Paul Kingsnorth, “The Vagabond King”
While easy to dismiss as a kind of capitalist cope, the principle is inescapable.
Even the smallholder or the urban homesteader must make a living in order to live the simple and generous life.
iii. Immigration
The apparent tension between the natural law and the new commandment has broken out into the political domain in debates over immigration.
Christian and non-Christian advocates of, in the US, not enforcing immigration laws and, in European nations, restricting Muslim immigration appeal to compassion and self-sacrificial love as reasons to be more liberal on immigration. Christians appeal to Old Testament provisions for the stranger and the foreigner and to Christ’s teaching.
Meanwhile, some Christian advocates of immigration enforcement and restriction have appealed to the natural law, to natural limits, and to the ordo amoris as reasons to maintain the integrity of national community prior to aid to non-citizens. Brad Littlejohn’s “Theology of Immigration” (First Things)is a great example of this. Vice President J. D. Vance’s famous remarks are another.
There doesn’t have to be tension here. I have been reflecting recently that I grew up with a vision of faith that was very focused on helping the poor, the minority, and the immigrant.
But I never once thought or heard another Christian even suggest that this had implications for national immigration policy until I was in a graduate degree.
Why? Because the biblical and the Christian call is to love “the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you” (Lev. 19:34). It is not to allow anyone who desires to enter the borders of your polity to do so.
A state may have many reasons to allow and even encourage immigration. The Christian openness to love of others beyond the circle of one’s natural attachments will undoubtedly have some implications for Christian thinking about immigration policy.
But what levels of immigration should be permitted and how strictly laws should be enforced are questions of political prudence, not Christian principle.
In this case too, the new commandment does not subtract from the old commandments and from the natural law; it adds to them. In addition to living in accord with natural justice, exercising reciprocal sacrifice, we must exercise self-sacrificial love.
But even as Christ asks more, he asks no less than Peterson and the natural law:
“These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others” (Matt 23:23).
Sacrifice and the Social Good
At present, then, Jordan Peterson is flattening a significant dichotomy within biblical teaching:
The principle of self-sacrifice, embodied in Christ’s passion, is not that of reciprocal sacrifice, on which civilization is indeed founded. It is something more.
But true self-disadvantaging sacrifice does not contradict reciprocal sacrifice, but extends beyond it.
What is more, a venerable, if recent tradition argues that even the truly Christian principle of sacrifice without expecting a return contributes to political well-being.
Hannah Arendt argued that the principle of Christian forgiveness is necessary to put an end to adjudication of past misdeeds. Conditions of natural justice require forgiveness that is indeed willing to leave some wrongs unrecompensed.
René Girard argued that social peace requires the sacrificial scapegoat. Cycles of retributive justice and tribal warfare can come to an end only through sacrifice.
And I would argue that natural justice and finite human flourishing are increased by the costly good works Christians and others perform that will never be repaid in this life. In fact, the willingness to do good for the community that will not be repaid is at the heart of the role people like Socrates and Peterson play.
Peterson’s rise to prominence was precipitated by a willingness to suffer harm for the good of the community. His courage was rewarded with fame but also punished with criticism, slander, cancellation, and eventually, nearly-fatal health complications.
Peterson’s sacrifice, I would argue, was never reciprocal. While he may have been rewarded, including financially, nothing can recompense the loss of scholarly and clinical reputation, the physical suffering, and the withering criticism to which he has been subjected.
In his own person, Peterson displays a kind of sacrifice that goes beyond the reciprocal.
And that kind of sacrifice, “the sacrifice that tends towards the ultimate,” is required to restore a broken and faltering civilization.
Christ himself indicated that self-disadvantaging sacrifice would not be temporally useless:
Jesus said, “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold nowin this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life.” (Mark 10:29-30)
This is Christian civilization: “Houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions.”
And it is a prelude to the city, the civitas, even the “civilization of God” to come.
If you missed it, watch our last episode where King Laugh and I spoke with the hosts of New Kinship to sort out whether there is such a thing as marriage and family idolatry and, if so, what it is.
Aaron’s critique was in the back of my head as we had this conversation. I’ve come to think that there is truth on both of these sides, and truths that are needed in particular contexts. In the urban church, a reminder to prioritize marriage rather than individualism and career is quite important.
Yet in our prioritization of marriage, we must not give in to the modern “romantic” view of marriage that ignores the possibility of intimate friendship, the need of extended family, and the possibilities of kinship outside of family. We must not whitewash the experience of bearing and raising kids; both celibacy and marriage are callings and crosses.
Check out my new song, “Nothing Matters.” It’s a pop-punk track about what I call Christian nihilism.
My first pop-punk release was “Common Ground,” about the reasons we dehumanize those with whom we disagree.
Theological Epistemology Course
We’re seven lectures into my first online course here at The Natural Theologian. “Theological Epistemology” is a course about revelation and reason, faith and science, biblical and natural theology.
He argued for conservatism against (classical) liberalism in written and filmed debates on Triggernometry. I recommend his “What Is Conservatism?”
Theological Epistemology Course
If you are interested in the questions we discussed in this podcast, especially the discussion of how nature points to God, you will have an interest in my new online course “Theological Epistemology,” offered through a paid subscription to this Substack.
Links to the first three lectures are available below, as well as the course syllabus. In addition, you may access one lecture as a freebie, since Substack allows free access to one paywalled post.
Lecture 4, The Epistemology of Arguments for God, Modern and Contemporary
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* Disciple-making is the responsibility of every member of the church, and it involves training and guiding others in their walk with God.
* Churches need to move away from a consumeristic mindset and prioritize hospitality, community, and a focus on Christ-likeness in everyday life.
* The church should provide guidance and wisdom on practical matters of life, such as parenting and finances, in addition to theological teaching.
* Unity in the church requires a balance between specific requirements, expectations, and encouragement, while respecting individual differences and preferences.
* Churches should prioritize roots and generational connections, encouraging families to stay close and passing on wisdom and values to future generations.
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My Song and My Book
Meet with Me
Talk with me for thirty minutes about anything theological, philosophical, or personal related to my writing and podcasting at The Natural Theologian.
I also offer consulting on getting into Ph.D.’s and related academic or intellectual career advice.
The Natural Theologian is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
* “What was weird about 80s and 90s American evangelicalism that's not representative of say historic Protestantism?”
* "If you're my age and guess what, you don't have anything to go back to, your kind of choices are, okay, maybe the world was right and evangelicalism lied to me about the world or..."
* "Evangelicals talk all the time. It's actually their sacrament, right? Like the, because of course the, the, the primacy of the preached word is so important."
* "Just live the faith. They're not really checking in on what you're doing."
* "Where did the professionalization of the ministry come from?"
* “There’s no universal competency that comes with a collar.”
* “The ‘professional Christian’ idea is a 20th century phenomenon.”
* “What is the good life? Well, the good life is to love your neighbor as yourself.”
* “The church is the building.”
* "The church, the gospels don't have a lot to say about politics."
Chapters
00:00 Introduction and Book Discussion
02:17 The Rise of Ex-Evangelical Memoirs
11:53 The Conflation of Leadership and Authority in Evangelicalism
23:16 The Role of Gurus and Celebrity Figures in Evangelicalism
27:28 The Importance of Prudence in Christian Decision-Making
30:47 The Pitfalls of Professionalizing the Ministry
32:24 The General Nature of Admonitions in the Church
33:30 The Professionalization of the Ministry in the Early 20th Century
36:14 The Influence of Scientism and the Darwinian Framework
38:10 Socioeconomics and Church Growth
52:59 Redefining the Concept of a 'Dying Church'
59:36 Exploring Christian Nationalism
01:00:07 Integrating Different Disciplines into Theological Discourse
01:01:34 The Misconception of Theology as Sociology or Politics
01:02:32 The Church's Role in Saving Souls
01:03:56 The Church's Stance on Politics
01:10:07 Evangelicalism: Politics vs. Theology
01:15:21Fostering Love and Community in the Church
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