Magisterial Political Theology Is the New Pragmatism
On the use of politics to appeal to seekers
The philosophy of pragmatism gained popularity in America beginning in the 1870s, largely through the efforts of intellectual theorists like Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, and John Dewey. Without attempting any kind of nuanced historical analysis, pragmatism can fairly easily be understood as teaching that the viability of a belief or practice is proven by its success. An idea or habit is validated if it works. If you want to know whether you should do a certain thing, you need to predict whether that thing will be successful. If it works, it’s right.
Christians should intuitively reject such a philosophy. Historically, we have confessed that God doesn’t only reveal what ends to pursue, he also teaches how to pursue those ends. Making converts for Christ, for example, is a good end. Using the tip of a sword to accomplish that end must be rejected out of hand. We cannot pursue God’s ends without reliance on God’s means. The Christian faith is revealed. God shows us what to pursue, and he also shows us how to pursue it. Evaluating the success of any end begins with attention to the methods used to achieve it.
For years, conservative Protestants—people who enthusiastically embrace the authority of the Bible, emphasize right doctrine, and use confessions of faith—critiqued the Church Growth Movement for its compromise with the philosophy of pragmatism. Churches like Willow Creek and Saddleback were exploding in growth, but they seemed to be doing so at the expense of faithfulness. They seemed too eager to file the sharp edges off the Christian message in the name of more people coming to their churches. They spent more time on building elaborate attractional programs than on discipling existing members in the faith. Few would have argued with the visible success of those programs, but many questioned the means relied upon.
In an ironic twist, some of the same voices who would rightly scorn the Church Growth Movement for its compromise with pragmatism have no qualms embracing their own version of the philosophy. It seems pragmatism is fine if deployed toward the right goals.
Consider the argument often put forth for a return to a more magisterial political theology among Protestants today. I read a book review recently in which the fundamental critique of the book under evaluation—a book making strong theological and philosophical arguments related to the relationship between church and state—was that its thesis no longer works. The “review” suggested that the book’s advocacy of Christian persuasion over coercion in politics should be rejected because it doesn’t seem plausible and cannot succeed, given the current state of the nation.
Anecdotally, this kind of argumentation seems to be the motivation behind many of the renewed calls to various forms of Christian Nationalism. Magisterial Protestants often begin by calling readers to look at the state of American culture. Classical Liberalism has clearly failed, they argue. We gave religious liberty a try, and it led to Drag Queen Story Hour and men in women’s locker rooms. The reigning political theologies in America haven’t worked. We need something stronger—an approach to culture and politics that will get us the result we crave. We need to choose whatever means will achieve victory for our cause.
Trevin Wax has recently made a similar observation distinct but related to the one I’m making here. In his analysis, just as the practitioners of the Church Growth Movement targeted “felt needs” to attract people to their churches, the new pragmatism attempts to attract seekers by focusing on political topics. Since we have a culture obsessed with politics, many conservative Protestants have decided to give people what they want. Without explicitly disowning their conservative theology, they preach sermons that target all the evil out there in the world. They tickle conservative ears by railing on the relevant culture war issues to grow churches and build online platforms from among their political tribe.
In both dynamics, politics usurps revelation in defining the means upon which God’s people rely.
Many Baptists who oppose calls to impose the faith from the heights of government power do not disagree with the end. We too want a Christian nation. However, we believe, following our Baptist predecessors and scriptural directives, that a Christian nation requires Christian citizens and that Christian citizens require regeneration by the Holy Spirit. We, therefore, disagree with the means. We don’t believe that the gospel of the kingdom prevails through government fiat but through the church preaching the gospel, making and baptizing disciples, and teaching them everything Christ commanded. We do not believe we have the liberty to pursue Christ’s end with our own means.
The means Christ ordains match the character of the end Christ ordains, and when we implement foreign means in service to Christ’s end, we misrepresent the character of the end. When we ask government to acknowledge and identify with theological truth claims, we are asking it to represent the character of Christ’s kingdom before the world. However, only the regenerated people of God can rightly represent Christ’s kingdom. Any earthly government that makes the attempt will inevitably fail, perverting the nature of Christ’s kingdom and consequently hindering the church’s mission.
God ordains government to its proper end and gives it distinct means for accomplishing that end. God ordains the church for a different end with distinct means appropriate to its end. When improper means are employed in service to wrong ends, values get blurred.
The church evaluates success and failure differently than the world around us. Jesus’s death was really life. Those who serve are ranked first over those being served. In this kingdom, loss is gain. Sacrificial love defines true greatness instead of rank and capital. If we want to save the world, we must reckon with the fact that it will not come in the form we expect. When we look at history, we see example after example of Christ triumphing through the sacrifice of his people. Jesus isn’t the means to the nationalistic vision of our dreams. He doesn’t serve the agenda of America First or Make America Great Again or the perverted progressive utopia of Drag Queen Story Hour. He’s the way to the end of himself. He alone defines—in his person, his life, and his words—the way his followers must live in the world.
Perhaps the way toward the end of renewal in American culture is for the church to reject pragmatism and recommit to the Great Commission. It may work. It may not. But at least we won’t have to compromise Christ’s revealed call for his church
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