The Antioch Declaration

This new document is worth carefully considering:

Let me put my cards on the table. As many of you know, I am a Christian and a conservative. But of course there are various sorts of Christians, just as there are various sorts of conservatives. Disagreements often arise. So to be more specific, I am a Protestant evangelical, but Lewis’ attempt to describe a “Mere Christianity” is something I largely support. Or as I have stated elsewhere, I am a Nicene Christian, mostly content with what is found in the early church creeds: https://billmuehlenberg.com/2022/01/07/im-a-nicene-christian/

My conservatism is also somewhat bounded. I am not a radical libertarian. I do not just favour small government and balanced budgets, but I want to see some wins along the way in the culture wars, etc. So I am perhaps a Burkean conservative: https://billmuehlenberg.com/2010/08/24/what-is-conservatism/

When it comes to things like Israel, Ukraine, and other hots spots, I am not a gung-ho neo-isolationist. I do not accept all that some Christian conservatives are saying about these and other conflicts. And I have written before about some of my thoughts on things like Christian Reconstructionism and Christian Nationalism.

In the little that I have said so far, I have likely already made a number of enemies, even among those calling themselves Christians and conservatives! Such will be life until we all make it to the next world. But it is sometimes worth trying to lay out certain key issues and truths that are worth fighting for.

One such attempt is the recently released Antioch Declaration, mainly penned by Douglas Wilson and James White, with collaboration by folks like Rev. Dr. Joseph Boot and Rev. Jeff Durbin. Some of those who have signed it include Scott Aniol, David Bahnsen, Kenneth Gentry, George Grant, Peter Jones and Peter Leithart.

Perhaps in future articles I will discuss in more detail some of the points raised in the Declaration, but here it might be best simply to present it to you in full (minus its Introduction):

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We deny that the Kingdom purposes of Christ and requirements of His Word can be equated with the seating positions of political actors during the French Revolution, or that the modern antithesis between right and left is equivalent to the antithesis that God established in the Garden of Eden between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent, the kingdom of darkness and kingdom of light.

We affirm that the modern neo-pagan secular project is bankrupt and desperately trying to hold the social order together by means of a fraudulent narrative and anti-Christian worldview. As a result, the lies of secular elites in all spheres have necessarily grown increasingly evident and outrageous.

We affirm that, as a consequence, some young men in the West have become jaded and cynical, with an element among them now rejecting or doubting the received account of virtually anything. The great danger is that now, instead of acting on the basis of revealed truth in Christ, they are in the unhappy position of reacting by choosing between opposing sets of lies.

We deny that disillusionment and resentment over the lies one has been told is adequate preparation for standing in the truth and resisting a new set of lies.

We affirm that disillusionment and resentment make a person vulnerable to deception and frequently prepare the ground for accepting new falsehoods, setting the stage for further disillusionment.

We deny that neo-pagan secularism with its utopian religious motive arose as a consensus after World War II. Rather, it manifests itself as the political outworking of the so-called Enlightenment during the French Revolution and gradually won the hearts and minds of Western nations, being well expressed in the political philosophies dominating Europe prior to the outbreak of the two great global conflagrations.

We affirm that the aftermath of World War II served as a cultural tipping point for the secular narrative and its myth of religious neutrality which has functioned as a centerpiece for these lies. It has promoted this deception with triumphal hubris throughout all Western institutions, insisting on both an idolatrous religious pluralism and a mandatory globalist cosmopolitanism.

We affirm that a contradictory and pervasive thread of self-doubt and self-loathing has also formed an essential part of this secular narrative following the horrors of World War II. Thus, when the reactionary right challenges the “post-war narrative” they are not necessarily breaking free of it—this is a reflex that the post-war narrative itself has nurtured. The narrative thrives on an unstable mix of white imperiousness and white guilt.

We deny that any particular view of the Allied leaders, their strategies, or tactics during World War II should be a test of Christian orthodoxy. We FURTHER deny that this civic adiaphora may be expanded to cover malice, vain glory, race-baiting, antisemitism, treachery, bitterness, or hatred. These issues are entirely distinct.

We deny that it is possible to harmonize the racial and antisemitic theories of Adolf Hitler and neo-pagan doctrines of the Nazi cult with the gospel of Christ and the teachings of scripture.

We affirm that if the superabundant, diverse forms and veritable glut of evidence – detailed in diaries, documented records, firsthand testimonies of eyewitnesses, extensive photography and videography all provided within living memory – for the deliberate mass destruction of millions of Jews by the Nazis does not amount to historical certitude for what specialists call the Holocaust, then the science of history itself is called into question.

We affirm that there is a vital biblical difference between the self-loathing of men in the grip of disillusionment over a failed idol, and the true repentance of the Christian man.

We deny that it is possible to recover an ethic that honors our fathers and their momentous sacrifices while actively and openly dishonoring them.

We affirm that as the secular liberal edifice crumbles, many will refuse to turn to Christ. As the “strong gods” inevitably return, godless influential figures will arise the same way Theudas did (Acts 5:34-39). [1] The temptation for some Christian leaders will be to ape such methods for the sake of clicks, followers and the ephemeral notion of ‘influence.’

We deny that it is possible to be a faithful Christian shepherd without identifying, naming and fighting the wolves which prey on the flock. As such, pastors have a duty to confront and rebuke wickedness in all its forms within their congregations.

We affirm that in deeply unsettled times there is a carnal desire in fallen man to seek out a scapegoat for sin and social corruption. This sadistic urge seeks to expiate guilt by laying the blame and punishment for all cultural ills on an identifiable group(s). The victimized group(s) is offered up to the masses as providing ostensible ‘explanatory power’ for cultural decay, which all conspiracy theories must provide if they are to gain any traction. The Jews have often been the easiest target for this kind of sinful and decrepit thinking.

We deny that scapegoating is a legitimate practice for Christians to participate in because God has already provided the final and perfect scapegoat in Christ Jesus who alone is the true sin-bearer.

We deny that our rejection of antisemitism requires us to ignore or minimize the destructive impact that various God-hating individual Jews have had in human history, just as our rejection of the hatred of Europeans and Anglo-Saxons does not require us to ignore the cultural devastation that many God-hating individual Gentiles have produced. Every ethnic people have members to be ashamed of, and every ethnic people have members to be grateful for.

We deny that Jews are in any way uniquely malevolent or sinful, that Judaism in its multifarious expressions is objectively more dangerous than other false religions, or that it represents an exceptional threat to Christianity and Christian peoples. By nature, the Jews are objects of wrath just like the rest of us, which is condemnation enough (Ps. 14:2-3), and are equally recipients of God’s grace (Rom. 11:11-32).

We deny that world affairs are governed by conspiring Jews or that there is a global Jewish conspiracy to corrupt and destroy Western society.

We affirm that the Jews are as all other men—alienated from God and in need of the cleansing blood of Jesus Christ. As a people they have nevertheless remained an object of God’s providential care. With the Puritans of old, We affirm that in God’s good time, multitudes of Jews will come to faith in Christ and be added to the true commonwealth of Israel, inheriting the same blessings as Gentile believers. Hence, the cancerous and counterproductive sin of antisemitism has no place among God’s people.

We deny that there is more than one message or way of salvation. Salvation is through Christ alone, by faith alone, and by grace alone for both Jew and Gentile, out of whom God has made one new people, removing the dividing wall of hostility (Eph. 2:11-21).

We affirm that God has ordained the existence of peoples and nations (Acts 17:26-28) and as such our cultural heritage is something to be grateful for so that, in view of God’s good gifts to our people, national pride, along with a healthy patriotism, are appropriate for Christians. At the same time, it is important to reject every form of identity politics, whether of the left or right—or whether the form it takes is malicious or vainglorious.

We deny that the church of Jesus Christ in its particular locale has any compulsory quotas or assigned ratios for ethnic mix. The make-up of any local church community will be dependent on many socio-cultural, lingual and regional factors, and there is no requirement that any given congregation “look like the new Jerusalem.” But We FURTHER deny that a Christian congregation has the right to arbitrarily exclude any person based on prejudice, malice or bigotry toward their ethnic group.

We affirm that the ultimate bond or good for temporal human life is not grounded in absolute loyalty to blood and soil, family or nation, but in the totalizing bond of the Kingdom of God through the Covenant of Grace (Matt. 3:9; 6:10; 8:11; 12:46-50; Lk. 14:26; Eph. 2:11-21; Rev. 7:9-10).

We affirm that in all things, including the treatment of our fellow human beings, the model man and example is not the life and teaching of Aristotle, nor any other merely historical personage, but the Lord Jesus Christ himself, Son of Man and eternal Son of God.

[1] Acts 5:36: Theudas was a Jewish magician, revolutionary and false Messiah, who gathered followers to the river Jordan, promising to part it. The Roman governor Fadus sent troops who killed and captured members of the crowd; Theudas was himself captured and eventually beheaded.

https://antiochdeclaration.com/

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Just one concluding word. I have seen and been appalled by far too much latent or overt antisemitism, and even revisionist thinking concerning Hitler and the Nazis coming from some of these Christians of the “reactionary right”. And sadly at times a multitude of sins can be covered up by theological jargon, even theological sophistry. I want little if nothing to do with this.

That in part is why I have signed this document. Is it a perfect document? Of course not. But it more or less reflects where I am now at as a Christian and a conservative. It will not be the last word on these and related matters obviously. But I believe it has been a timely and necessary word.

Please prayerfully and thoughtfully consider it.

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