The Crossroads of Christianity and Culture

The job of government is, in large part, to restrain personal behavior for the good of the larger society. Indeed that is why we have government: it is to: " establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty . .  .” Thus we have the thousands and thousands of laws that impose everything from speed limits to restaurant cleanliness standards. And that’s why we have law enforcement to make sure people follow those laws.  We know, as the founders of this country knew, that you cannot leave public safety up to a sense of personal  responsibility, although having a sense of personal responsibility for the welfare of others is also important because there isn’t enough law enforcement in the world for a nation of selfish antinomians.  While Texas Governor Abbott no doubt recognizes this,  he also believes that if people’s behavior is restrained then they will no...

In recent Christian  discourse a clear theological divide has emerged. On one side are those who assert that the social order  is fundamentally structured by God or God’s law. On the other side are those who assert that humans are responsible creating social structures that express divinely revealed principles of love and justice.  The first of these assertions is older in Christian history. Until the Enlightenment, Christians believed that almost their entire social order was based on divine mandate. To deny the divine right of kings was both heresy  and  treason. Romans 13:1-7 seems to confirm this.  However, some 300 or more years ago a new consensus emerged in Europe that the people  were the divinely appointed ruling authorities. Political systems began to emerge that recognized their right to rule themselves. As a result Christians have slowly and often grudgingly surrendered claim after claim that some aspect of the social order is based on a di...

Part 1 The concept of civil society in the West begins in Greece and Rome over 2000 years ago. But it really takes on meaning in the Enlightenment as political philosophers try to reimagine how a society can be organized.  They recognize that businesses in general, whether in the form of guilds or emerging corporations and companies, represent one aspect of every society. They recognize that government, meaning kings and associated parliaments, nobles and etc were another aspect of every society.  But what about everyone else? At one time the church had been considered a third critical part of society, but in England and later the US the church was officially “disestablished.” For practical purposes it dis-integrated into competing sects. Religion was theoretically moved to the realm of private belief rather than being a public institution.  Civil society  then becomes the name for all those individuals and organizations in a democratic society whose political b...