Episode Transcript
[00:00:06] Speaker A: Welcome to the Truth Exchange podcast. This is a weekly program with Doctor Jeffrey J. Ventrella where he answers questions from subscribers around the globe, answering questions about worldview, cultural apologetics and other miscellaneous items. I'm your host, Joshua Guillotine. And this is another edition of the director's Bag.
Well, we are back for another episode of the director's Bag. I have a long line of questions regarding the most recent series on idolatry of the state, and one writer from an anonymous X account, or formerly known as Twitter says, since Ruthexchange likes to deal in binaries, here are a few binaries of a christian worldview. Globalism versus nationalism, christian versus secular. There is no alternative. Doctor Ventrella, is there an alternative? Are these our only options for today?
[00:01:06] Speaker B: Thank you, Joshua. I really appreciate the question because I think they're trying to grapple with the fundamental binary which scripture reflects, the creator creature distinction, and then, of course, as that's reflected in the foundation of our anthropology, maleness and femaleness.
But I don't think that the illustrations and examples he gave or she gave are actually accurate because I can conceive of something that says there is no neutrality. I think that's fair and true, but the alternatives would be Christianity and paganism in all of its flavors. I think that's the actual theological binary that applies as to the notion of globalism and nationalism.
That's a much tougher one to agree that it's a workable binary because the definitions are so fluid by what they mean with respect to that. So I appreciate the effort. I think more effort needs to go into it.
[00:02:11] Speaker A: Is there because I was going back and looking at some of these issues as I was looking through this long list of questions dealing with christian nationalism, doing some bit of investigating. And christian nationalism came, was a originally was a attack on the church and typically was coupled with white christian nationalism. And there was really no definition of what christian nationalism was. It was just really a slur and it just kind of meant, or it just on surface level, it meant people who wanted to see christian values impose in a government system. And at that face value, would you be opposed to christian values or christian laws being enshrined in public?
[00:02:57] Speaker B: So a couple of thoughts there. One is, and I find the term a bit repellent. Depending upon definition. Nationalism tends to put all the eggs in the hands of the state. It typically refers to political ordering and political execution of that ordering, whereas I think the biblical issue is a limited and defined state, but a flourishing christian culture. So I think that's the first distinction we have to make, and what happens is there's a collapsing, a collapsing and identification of the state with culture. And I think that's a huge mistake that occurs. God's kingdom includes far more than the state and the other kinds of governments that God establishes. But to the point, certainly, that the state, as well as every person, is called to bow their knee and eventually will bow their knee to Christ and his kingship. And that includes Christ being prophet, priest and king. Thus, the ordering of society must reflect what the king declares and is appropriate. Now, the good news there is that some of these are designed for human flourishing. Some of these are not directly imposed. For example, we ought not to covet. But there is no state enforcement of covetousness in the scriptures. That's left for other governing entities such as church, such as husband and wife, and those sorts of things with respect to children. So I think we have to be careful that when people hear us say that we think the most flourishing and the most freeing structure of order includes christians proposing the moral law of God, we are not saying, because the moral law of God contains its own processes and its own liberties and its own freedoms as well. So it's not this top down. People hear the Taliban or Sharia law, and it's simply not the case that the moral law of God is in any way similar to that. Rather, what we have is these subsequent false religions aping Christianity and sovereignty and so forth, but don't have the correct substance of it.
[00:05:29] Speaker A: I like what you and one of the dictas, I think it was actually the part two of the idols of the state. You quote Bavink and out of his book, the Christian Family. And the quote was, anyone who expects the state to satisfy all those interests for which family and society and church are to look after is undermining the independence of these spheres of life and is calling for a remedy that in the long run will turn out to be more dangerous than the disease. And that's one thing that you've noted a few times, even from this podcast, as well as in the dictas, is that the christian nationalists, the bronze pagan boys, is that they've made use of critical theory in response to critical theory.
[00:06:20] Speaker B: Yeah, they mirror it. They mirror what's going on. They engage in identity politics, they engage in coercive cancellation, they engage in imposing things through state power alone, raw state power. That's just critical theory with our own agenda.
[00:06:40] Speaker A: Yep. Next up is Sharon from Gilbert, Arizona. Your neck of the woods.
[00:06:44] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:06:45] Speaker A: In the dicta, Doctor Ventrell mentions the importance of the source of one's rights, which is our creator, who is also the giver of the law. If Congress were to pass a bill that would end abortion, the POTUS were to sign it as law, would we not applaud this? Isn't this what the left is calling christian nationalism? Some of what you were talking about, Jeff, just recently, simply christian culture being enshrined in the laws of the land and upheld by the government.
[00:07:15] Speaker B: Thank you for that insightful question, Sharon. It shows a depth of analysis that's sometimes missing from a lot of folks, too. You are correct in this sense that oftentimes law follows culture. So the prospects of having a federal ban on abortion, which I would support, and I think, frankly, the 14th amendment, properly interpreted, should support, as well as a privilege or immunity for all persons, including immunity of life and so forth, will only come about when the culture first readies itself for it to do that. So would we support that? Would I support that as a constitutional professor and so forth? Yes, I would, and I think would make the right argument, and we ought to support that as best we can within the rule of law that we have established. Now, it is true that those on the left, as you said, Joshua, will use the notion of, quote, christian nationalism as a slur, particularly using it in a racial sense or in a sense to take away their own idols, the left zoned idols, like abortion, like the mutilation of children in so called gender affirmation and so on and so forth. So we have to understand that that's a slur at that point. That does not mean that when we are saying we ought to ensconce laws that protect the imago dei in such a way that allows flourishing, that therefore, we're christian nationalists. That's a very separate sort of an issue. We are those who want to have every square inch, as our upcoming symposium will address, every square inch submitted to Christ. And only part of those square inches involve the federal government. It also involves other parts of the culture. And so every square inch means that every square inch reflects Christ's claim of ownership and ought to be sanctified and taken captive by Christ in our thinking. And, of course, that means in our actions as well. So I think that, yes, the moral law of God should be our plumb line. It makes it very clear. We see this clear back in, I think, ezekiel two. This is how we have a society that is abundant flourishing, so on and so forth for all people. What people don't understand, I think, sometimes, is that whether in the old covenant or the new covenant. The christian faith is a universalizing face, a welcoming faith, and it simply says, we are not simply going to shame, we're not ashamed religion. Rather, we're a forgiveness religion predicated upon the grace of God, who grants regeneration and repentance as a gift. And consequently we walk in newness of life, or as Jesus says, abundant life, whereas the thief comes to destroy and steal and so on and so forth. That's the contrast. So we want a public ordering that's not like the thief. We want it that allows abundant life.
[00:10:33] Speaker A: My friend Keith from Columbia, South Carolina, he sent me this note. He said, dear Truth Exchange podcast and the recent dicta idols of the state Jeff Ventrell mentions, warns christians passionate to make America great again. I suppose I am one of those Maga guys. In fact, after that dicta came out, I wound up going to church for prayer meeting, and he wore his hat and he tapped at it because he said, I saw Jeff's dicta.
He says, though, I'm not blind to the sinfulness of the presidential candidate, I just want things back to normal or to have some level of sanity. Can you give an example of an initiative to expand the power of the state? Is this like a christian appointed judge, republican controlled House, Senate, and Republican POTUS? Thanks, dear brothers. I follow all of your shows and pray for you all. Thank you, Keith.
[00:11:28] Speaker B: Well, I just find that so heartwarming that here's a person that asks an honest question, not afraid to put his cards on the table, and yet does so with civility. That right there is the fruit of the spirit. And that's what we need to increasingly demonstrate, even in this caustic public square that we have. So he asks a number of things there, and I want to focus, make preliminary comment, and then give them some examples. The preliminary comment, I was reflecting upon this this morning in other contexts, but given where the new GOP and he talked about Republicans, that's why I'm talking about them. Given the new GOP platform and what they are saying or what they are not saying, the GOP, not rank and file, but as an organization, as a party, now stands economically, politically, and socially to the left of Bill Clinton's presidency.
That's something to ponder. But that is exactly true if you start pulling out particular policy things. So where do we have now initiatives? I mean, I appreciate what he says about, I mean, elections matter, judicial appointments matter. I'd much rather have someone to the right of center, in control of our chambers of government than the left of center. We've seen what that does, but that doesn't change. Where we now are seeing appeals to state power. Let's just talk about it economically. A person who's very influential now in the GOP is Orrin Cass. Orrin Cass was a policy director for domestic policy for Mitt Romney. He also founded recently, American Compass. Orin's a smart guy, you know, Harvard Law student school and all that sort of stuff. But where you can really see his policies exposed for the statism they are is in a debate he did with one of our truth exchange scholars, David Bonson. It's a very cordial but very enlightening debate. He's been footnoted a few times, I think, in our dicta. But here's the thing. American compass, as one of the leading policy input entities into the new GOP and the new right, they oppose tax cuts, they oppose deregulation, they oppose free trade. Well, what are they for? They are for tariffs, they are for public financing for certain kinds of entities and so forth, public investments and whatnot. They also support a robust and rigorized, if that's a word, labor unions. My point is all those initiatives require state power, state coercive power, and expanded state coercive power to implement. It's subtle, but it's very, very real. And so these folks aren't saying, let's win elections and then unassemble the administrative state. What they are saying instead is let's just put our people in there and we will, quote, reward our friends and punish our enemies. That's just a course of use of state power. And so we're seeing a grab for that sort of thing. We're also seeing this in initiatives that bypass the many laboratories of state government and always seeking federal solutions for these things. So I would challenge folks to think about the parable in Matthew 20, which only works when there's a freedom of contract assumed. That's the whole point, that the master can determine not through collective bargaining what to pay his servants, but what they agreed to negotiate on their own. And he can pay someone who works 3 hours the same as someone who works 12 hours, because they all came to that within the market. And then I would direct people to Robert Sirico's most recent book called Economics of the Parables that was released in 2020, and that shows that the scripture embraces a limited, virtuous market approach to public ordering and not a statist top down approach. So I think we have to be very weary, and that's one reason we need to be honest about critiquing not only the paganism in the left, but also the paganism that is developing in the new rite. Remember that paganism is all about ultimately either worshiping the self or worshiping the state. And we're seeing now this renewed fondness for Leviathan, and that is troubling.
[00:16:35] Speaker A: Speaking of worship of the state, Brandt from Shreveport, Louisiana says, doctor V, what are your thoughts on blasphemy laws?
Some argue they are still intact today, specifically up in the UK and Canada. Would you be against christian blasphemy laws? And I think he's referring to things like when you talk about somebody's personal pronouns and misgendering them in Canada and the UK.
[00:17:02] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm having a hard time understanding if he's talking about the administration of the older covenant under Israel or if he's talking about in the modern states that are not covenanted in any way, which of course, there are none today.
We are founded, the United States is founded upon christian precepts. That doesn't make it a covenanted nation. It does make it, in a loose sense, a christian nation. But unfortunately, people then fill in the gap and make it, make that term mean things it really does not mean. So we had a christian founding is the best way to say that, meaning that it's not covenanted and that sort of thing.
So the question on this whole blasphemy laws, let's see, how technical can I get here?
There is no hebrew word for blasphemy. Okay. So if you look at the various rabbitic traditions, sometimes it's a narrow understanding, sometimes it's a much broader understanding. It typically means a course of expression as opposed to conduct, although later rabbinics made it into conduct as well. But it's originally an expression, in other words, using words that mock something that should not be mocked. That's the sense of it. Now, of course, Jesus was accused of blasphemy. Why? Because he forgave sins, and I, and only God can forgive sins and all that sort of thing. So it was certainly something in the first century that was on people's mind. But notice that that was in what we might call the ecclesiastical courts, not the roman courts, although they did bring that up in the trial illegally. With respect, it wasn't a crime. I don't think, in Rome at the time to do that. So that's just kind of by way of background. I think the next thing we have to ask is, what is the modern state's role in enforcing the second table or the first table? Do we make a distinction there with respect to the decalogue, because until we answer that question now, all of the decalogue, of course, as a summary of the moral law, is still binding. The question is, what's the expression of that? Which then leads to a third level of analysis, and that is the notion of penology. That is to say, do the penalties ascribed in the older covenant translate to the new covenant? If so, how? If not, why not all those kinds of questions? Interestingly enough, I went and did, because this is an important question.
I went and looked at probably the leading exposition of a position named theonomy by Doctor Greg Bahnsen. And in that index, you will not find the word of blasphemy. So that's, that's very interesting when we look at that. So I think that we need to be very careful because this is like the term christian nationalism. People will hear what people aren't saying, and so we want to be very careful with that. And I think we need to wrestle with it as well. Yeah. One fart further, this is a theological point, not an exegetical point. But Christianity opposes coerced conversions, coerced baptisms, coerced faith. Coerced faith is not faith at all.
[00:20:32] Speaker A: Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition.
[00:20:35] Speaker B: That's right. We hope not. Although there are people that are articulating something close to that these days.
[00:20:41] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:20:42] Speaker B: So with respect to that, I would say that to the extent a blaspheming law, a blasphemy law, would bear upon the conscience of someone, to deny their own conscience and give a fake profession of faith, I don't think that would be good. I don't think it would be good order for society.
[00:21:08] Speaker A: Jared from Ogden, Utah, says doctor Utah. Doctor Ventrella, I notice in the idols of the state series you discuss christian nationalism and the christian prince in a way that shows disapproval. I, however, see that Wolf, Stephen Wolfe, I'm assuming, is not writing about some utopian state of the state or an authoritarian rule, but the state being a servant to the common good of the people of a nation, whether christian or not. Do you think that you will in the future undertake a book review of Wolf's christian nationalism and engage him on his arguments?
[00:21:53] Speaker B: Yeah. So the answer is no. I'm not going to do a book review of that particular book for a number of reasons. But the primary one is that one of my longtime friends and a super theological scholar, Doctor Brian Matson, wrote what I think is the most devastating review of the book well over a year ago. It's called a Children's Crusade. He's made it available to the public on substack, a children's crusade, and it absolutely demolishes the whole thesis there. Part of the problem with the way Wolf presents this is that he basically says, he calls it christian nationalism, and then quickly in the book says, I'm not a theologian, I'm not a Bible scholar. And by the way, we can't look to special revelation to talk about political ordering at all. Well, wait a minute. He said it's christian. Well, he doesn't want to do that. And he calls it a christian prince, a christian prince who shouldn't use special revelation, who shouldn't consult the theological understandings. And it's very apparent that Doctor Wolfe does not have that understanding, a theological background. He misspells bobbing. It's pretty embarrassing, actually. So what he says is that only essentially unaided reason not consulting special revelation is going to get us in trouble after the fall because nature, or how things go, do a lot of bad things. Yes, this is how we get notions of kinism, this is how we get notions of tribalism, this is how we get notions of racism and all the rest. Because I'm just being natural. In other words. Oh, I think people that are the same, this is one of his arguments should be flocked together. We should just keep people that are the same together as opposed to what the church teaches through the gospel, is that Christianity is a liberalizing, universalizing that says we have every kindred, tribe, nation, tongue and so on and so forth. There's so many problems with it. But check out Doctor Matson's review. It's devastating. There's also a full length book rebuttal of it and I'm going to botch. Is it Blake Collins? Something like that, Boy Collins?
[00:24:10] Speaker A: Yep, yep.
[00:24:12] Speaker B: See, there he is. Mine like a trap right there.
So no, I'm not going to write, I'm not going to write the book. And I would also say to our Inquirer, Jared from Ogden, read what wolf writes very, very carefully and in context with other socio political things. And this is not a slur. But what you'll find is many of the arguments directly parallel the arguments made in Mein Kampf. And that's not a slurp, it's just parallel. And of course, Mein Kampf is all about the all powerful state led not by a benevolent common good leader or prince, but ultimately one is a murderous dictator. So I'm, I know that there's press out there that says this is what Wolfe may, may want to be but reading what he said, particularly in context, I don't see it, and I don't think it's there.
[00:25:09] Speaker A: This concludes the recording of the director's bag. For more resources from Truth exchange, please visit us online at WWE w dot truthexchange.com. you can follow us on X as well as Facebook for more updates and content related to Truth exchange. Be sure to join us next week for more questions from the director's bag. I'm your host, Joshua Guillo, and this is the Truth Exchange podcast.
