Christianity Today is an extremely liberal outlet that opposes Christian Nationalism. Last week, they published a column by Richard Mouw, an extremely liberal former president of Fuller Theological Seminary, arguing that pluralism is the ideal for Christians in society and that Christians should not legislate morality.
In a column titled, Theocracy Is Not the Enemy of Pluralism, Mouw redefines a working understanding of theocracy and uses it to support pluralism, the liberal notion of having a disunified society.
Theocracy literally means “the rule of God,” and Christians believe that while our churches do have human leaders, those leaders know that they are directly accountable to God for what they think and do. They keep reminding us that we Christians belong to “the kingdom of God,” which means that our ultimate allegiance is to Jesus, whom we often refer to as “ruling” over us.
This definition is used as the basis for the titular argument Mouw makes. His definition is absent in how the word is used in political science or common parlance. But this is his bait for people to read the article.
Everything that exists is under God’s rule. It is this theocratic arrangement—defining the very nature of reality—that gives believers meaning and hope in our lives. But does that mean that believers like me should try to turn the United States into a theocracy? I think not. God does not want me to force my theocratic understanding of reality on others. What God wants from people is that they freely offer their obedience to his will.
I do not serve God’s purposes in the world by trying to impose “Christian” laws on people against their own values and convictions. I should not want everything that I consider to be sinful to be made illegal. For example, although I don’t like the blasphemous language that I hear all too frequently while watching Netflix these days, I am not inclined to call for laws banning these expressions.
Blasphemy laws exist as a matter of which god is it illegal to offend. Mouw pivots to the example of a Netflix show, perhaps playing to a consumer audience, but how can one argue that Romans 1 leaves the first table of the law outside of the government’s jurisdiction? Christian laws aren’t about making all sin illegal, but rather the sins that are prescribed as crimes in Scripture or necessitate criminal punishment based on the particular needs of our society. It’s impossible to make lust or coveting a crime, as these are sinful desires, but adultery and theft can certainly be criminalized. It’s not that Mouw doesn’t understand the nuance between sin and crime, it’s that Richard Mouw does not want a Christian society.
I am grateful for the opportunity to live in a pluralistic society where I can learn from people with whom I seriously disagree about religious beliefs, public policy, and moral lifestyles. For one thing, I can learn about the mistakes and misdeeds that Christians like me have made in the past—and still make today—about important matters. In genuinely engaging others on these matters, I often find effective ways to partner with them for the common good.
Richard Mouw is grateful for pluralism and believes he can build interfaith coalitions for the common good.
After criticizing Evangelicals disinvolved with politics and the Moral Majority Movement, Richard Mouw offers his solution:
There is, of course, a third option, one desperately needed today in our increasingly polarized society: an evangelical willingness to labor patiently alongside others—persons of other faiths and of no faiths at all—in seeking workable solutions to the complex challenges we face as a nation.
In our weekly theocratic gatherings, we evangelicals tell God—in our prayers, hymns, and sermons—about our spiritual weakness as vulnerable human creatures. When we walk into church, we also bring with us the hopes and fears that we experience in our political lives.
This solution only works if one’s definition of good is fundamentally corrupted. It’s rather difficult to come up with a successful example of this. There are Muslims willing to team up with Christians to oppose sexual grooming in public schools, but these same people will largely elect the people who want to implement these policies. Mormons are strategic to work within a handful of states, and that’s about it. Yet more often, these interfaith alliances work against Christian interests such as supporting Zionism in a one-sided relationship that expends an oversized amount of political capital on a federal level.
Richard Mouw is a theocrat, but his theo is worldly.
