A Blind Squirrel Gets an Acorn

https://theaquilareport.com/vivek-ramaswamy-demolishes-evangelical-christians-view-of-america/

As readers will know I'm generally very opposed to anything the Theonomist Larry Ball has to say. As his writings are frequently published at The Aquila Report - which is something I look at almost every day, I often encounter his writings and occasionally respond to them.

This was actually a pleasant surprise - in one sense. I still disagree with him regarding the nature of the Kingdom of God and the broad strokes of the Scriptural message - we are ever at odds when it comes to those foundational issues. And yet on one question regarding America we can find some common ground.

I've always said that when it comes to the Christian America argument there are two aspects or angles by which the claims must be assessed. One is theological and the other is historical. Ball would agree with me on the historical - that America was not founded as a Christian nation. But unlike me he believes (theologically) such a thing to be possible. He is at odds with Evangelicals who erroneously believe the Founders were trying to establish a Christian state when in reality America broke with the traditions of Christendom going back to Constantine, Theodosius, and Charlemagne. It was the first explicitly non-Christian state established not by the grace of God but by the will of the people, a social contract.

This confusion of American Liberal Idealism and Christianity helps to explain (on multiple levels) the mess that is the American Church today. It also explains why American society has landed where it presently is found - a point on which I would imagine Ball would agree.

We both lament the confusion and conflated ideology that has polluted the Church but we have radically different solutions. He would erect a new Theonomic Christendom based more explicitly on Old Testament patterns than anything seen during the Catholic-dominated Middle Ages - resulting (I would argue) in a kind of pseudo-Kingdom Bestial domain.

On the contrary, I would call for the Church to return to New Testament pilgrim-exile patterns - a state of permanent dissidence and opposition to the world at large. I would rather live in pagan Rome than a counterfeit Christian Rome - the latter being far more subversive, dangerous, and confusing.

Contrary to everything Ball argues for, the New Testament assumes a pluralistic social order. Christians are always on the outside and thus a society that tolerates pluralism is the ideal - that is if we're trying to avoid persecution. There are real dangers in tolerance but tolerance becomes subversive if it strays into favour or preference - the very project of American Evangelicalism. It's compromised at its very foundations.

Ball and his ilk seek to eliminate all social pluralism and forge a monistic pseudo-theocracy. I say pseudo- because it's man-generated and without Divine sanction or warrant under the New Covenant. It's the result of the Judaized theology (and eschatology) to which Ball subscribes.

I even agree with Ball on the question of John Witherspoon. He was more an Enlightenment figure than a Christian one and as such of all the Founders I consider him in many respects to be the most pernicious. Why? Because he more than anyone else captures the Evangelical imagination and is upheld as an ideal Christian statesman rather than a compromised thinker who proffered ideas and ethics unfaithful to the New Testament. Ball would not go anywhere near as far as I would on this point and under a Theonomic order, there would certainly be religious tests and the like. Non-Christians would scarcely be tolerated, let alone have the opportunity to hold office or even flourish within society.

He does not elaborate on the question of Christian State Constitutions of which there were several. Doctrinally these can be dismissed as erroneous and rooted in bad theology. In terms of history and Constitutional law, they only lasted a generation or so as they fell into a fundamental contradiction with Federal jurisprudence as laid out in the Constitution. This is in addition to the shifting culture of the early 19th century. But basically you had state legal systems that were unconstitutional at the moment of Constitutional ratification and implementation (1787-1789).

Why did they not vanish immediately? Because the American system relies on the lawsuit and judicial review - which is problematic for Christians as we're not (according to the New Testament) to go to law and seek justice (which is a form of retribution). The system is set up to exclude New Testament Christianity though you'd certainly never know it listening to the Christian leaders of our day.

By the 1830's, all the old pseudo-Christian state constitutions (and state supported churches) were gone - purged by the new Constitutional order. If some Christians were honest they would in understanding this oppose the US Constitution but that would make them unpatriotic. Although as evidence of the nature of the US legal system and how it works, some of the religious tests and social elements lasted until the mid-20th century when a new chapter of legal inquiry and precedent was opened up by a combination of Progressive-era legislation and the fallout from World War II.

Ball makes it clear that he would shut down any forms of social pluralism. This argument is usually confused by the fact that Mainline-Modernist Christians also hold to a theological pluralism - other religions are legitimate, a position all New Testament Christians must reject. But for thinkers like Ball, the two go hand-in-hand and if we must reject Hinduism on a theological level, then we should reject it on a social level. This is not in accord with New Testament teaching where repeatedly we find a distinction between the Church and the world and while the world is temporary and doomed, it is not our task to exercise power over them as the powers that be are ordained by God. We do not take up the sword and contrary to the dream-fantasies of postmillennialists like Ball, this age will always be a present evil age ruled over by the god of this world. This will not change until Christ returns. At best they can only hope to paper over this reality which is only accomplished by some form of compromise - which is what we see happening right now with things like MAGA-Christianity and facilitated by so-called worldview teaching which is little more than syncretism resting not on Scripture but man-made philosophy.

A historian would read Ball's article and deduce that he's Anti-American as he is opposed American idealism as expressed in the Founding documents. I too would earn that label. In my case it's not that I'm Anti-American but rather a dissenter that refuses to endorse or participate in the order. I don't oppose it politically.

Ball would overthrow it and this is the strange thing - people like him hold these views and yet still wave the flag and express patriotic sentiment. But the America they love is not the America of reality but one they would create by overthrowing the existing order. That's not patriotism - it's subversion and rebellion. But somehow they think they are the 'true' Americans - as if a single Founding Father was in agreement with them.

I'm a 'bad citizen' since I won't vote or sit on a jury. I won't say the pledge or stand for the anthem. I don't support the legions or give to their causes. I live as a dissident.

But Ball is (by any historical definition) an advocate of treason. It's quite different and something to think about.

Ball thinks himself bold and sounds the warning. He fears the day in which the order collapses and becomes explicitly anti-Christian. It's the final statements that reveal just how blind he is. That reality (that American society is Anti-Christian) has been extant for 250 years - since the colonials rebelled, and took up arms against England because of their Enlightenment ideals and a bitterness over paying taxes.

There's lots to think about here and it's interesting how I can agree (in part) with Ball and yet we're still a million miles apart. Both of us can generate outrage from the Evangelical mainstream but for completely different reasons - even as we both say the US is not a Christian nation. There are no Christian nations in this age apart from Zion - the Church of God, the Body of Christ, those in union by means of the Holy Spirit. No Earthly nation can claim that. No nation has the right to make that claim apart from Divine mandate. Those that do are guilty of blasphemous assumption and have brought down judgment on themselves. If you doubt what I say, just look at Christendom, especially the places that adopted this thinking and amplified it. From New England to the Netherlands, to Scotland, England, and Germany, the verdict is clear. Will America as a whole be any different? I think not.