Many of my readers know a bit about Douglas Wilson, the American pastor and author who ruffles a few feathers now and then. I happen to have around 20 of his books, and I have some similarities with him. We were both born in the same year. We are both Americans. We are both Christians. We are both conservatives. We both love thinking, reading, studying and writing.
We both care deeply about the world around us and the church around us. We both have very public ministries, and we both get a lot of pushback for some of the things we believe and utter. Having said all this, I do not think he is infallible, and I can and do differ with him at times.
But one can often learn from the guy, even if differences arise. In this piece (and hopefully in future pieces) I want to look at one book of his that has been out now for a few years. I refer to his Mere Christendom (Canon Press, 2023). Much of the material he covers in this volume certainly DOES get some of his critics going bonkers.
Again, one need not agree with all he writes to at least give him a hearing. And most of the emphases found here are something I can resonate with, more or less. In this article I will simply offer snippets from Chapter 5: “What is Mere Christendom’?” (And note: much of this book is made up of previously published pieces of his, so some material is referring to what was happening before 2023.)
He begins with a definition:
I mean a network of nations bound together by a formal, public, civic acknowledgement of the Lordship of Jesus Christ, and the fundamental truth of the Apostles’ Creed. I mean a public and formal recognition of the authority of Jesus Christ that repudiates the principles of secularism, and that avoids both hard sectarianism and easy latitudinarianism both. Easier said than done, but there it is. That is what we have to do, and we have to do it because secularism has run its course, and does not have the wherewithal to resist the demands of radical Islam. Or a radical anything else, for that matter. It is possible to argue for this without supporting an “established church”… (p. 69)
He goes on to say this:
Jesus is Lord. I have been arguing for years now that what is required is a return to Christendom, but in a form that I call mere Christendom. If you like, you can call it mere fundamentalism. A free civilization is necessarily larger than any of the Christian denominations within it, but at the same time a free civilization will have to be Christian. So I propose no single established church, no tax-supported denominations, but I do propose the formal adoption of the Apostles’ Creed, and without any hermeneutical funny business. I propose that as a nation we formally confess together that Jesus actually did rise from the dead. If you protest that this would kill the great secular experiment that is America, I would reply that the great secular experiment that is America appears to have already gone out behind the barn and shot itself already.
The libertarian aspect of this insists that most of our practical problems can be addressed through repealing laws and abolishing agencies. When most people hear about a “theocratic” anything, they assume they will soon be confronted with ayatollah-manned death panels. But all societies are theocratic, with the only thing distinguishing them being the nature and attributes of the reigning theos. Since our current theos happens to be a bloodthirsty maniac, and because I am not a devotee of that particular religion, I would urge my fellow citizens to turn away from him, and turn to our heavenly Father. (pp. 71-72)
He says this as part of his concern to limit government and see it kept out of so much of our lives (something that is clearly not now the case):
Culture wars should be fought in the culture, not in the courts. One of the central reasons for having a constitutionally limited government is so that one cultural faction does not get to cheat, using the force of law to skew the outcomes in their favor. Since law is coercive by definition, the areas in which coercion is allowed should be radically limited. The law should protect life, liberty, and property. After that, the alternative visions for truth, goodness and beauty may freely compete. Using their own money, voluntarily donated, the secularists and atheists may build their own schools, write poems and novels, produce plays and movies, build cathedrals, compose concertos, and so on.
But it will not have escaped your notice that such free competition is a Christian value, and by limiting government in this way we have already decided what is the best way for everyone. There is no neutrality. So I don’t want liberty for secularists because secularism is true—it isn’t. Secularism is an opium dream, complete with flashing eyes and floating hair. I want liberty for secularists because Jesus is Lord. Because Jesus is Lord, the right of fallen sinners to wield coercive power must be strictly limited. One of the toughest lessons for sinners to learn is the necessity of leaving other sinners alone. When we do not leave them alone—in cases of rape and murder, for example—we have express warrant from God to do so. We do not have express warrant from God to make secularists confess something they don’t believe. (pp. 74-75)
Mere Christendom: The Case for Bringing Christianity Back into Modern Culture - Leading by Faith to Convert Secularismby Douglas Wilson (Author)
And the true arena of our battles is ultimately spiritual:
I am fond of quoting Chesterton’s great observation that the one taste of paradise on earth is to fight a losing cause, and then not lose it. That prospect is before us now. But where do we go to fight? Where is the center of the fight? There are various aspects to this question, but one of the more obvious is that in order to be the center of the fight, there has to be fighting. As the fellow once said, this ain’t beanbag.
Without Christ, nothing holds together (Col. 1:17-18). But in order to be an active part of His kind of bonding, leaders have to be more than hirelings (John 10:12). They have to be gifts from Christ to His people, and in order to be complete gifts from Him, they need to be more like Him. But we need to be done with leaders who want to be like Jesus, only not so bloody. (p. 76)
Yet the spiritual battles must also be fought in all levels, including the political:
One of the more notable features of the life of our Lord, as recorded in Scripture, is the fact that references to the outside world are overwhelmingly political. When Jesus was born, Augustus was Caesar (Luke 2:1) and Quirinius was governor of Syria (Luke 2:2). Herod the Great was ruler in Judea (Luke 1:5) and wielded his power to the grief of many mothers in Bethlehem. Tiberius was Caesar when John the Baptist began his ministry (Luke 3:1-2), and Luke includes a number of interesting names when he dates the arrival of the forerunner of the Messiah. Tiberius was still emperor when Jesus died, and this political orientation is sealed by the fact that Pontius Pilate was included in the Apostles’ Creed.
The New Testament is silent when it comes to the other outside celebrities. We are told very little about their poets, their actors, their singers. We know little of their architects from the pages of the New Testament, even though they had magnificent architects. No, Scripture focuses on the political rulers, and this is because it is where the fundamental challenge was mounted. (p. 77)
Lastly, this longer, summarising quote:
When Jesus assumed human nature, He did so first as a single cell. The eternal Word of the eternal Father, the one who spoke the heavens and earth into existence, took on a body that was the size of the period at the end of this sentence. His intent was to redeem every aspect of human existence, and so He did it by assuming it all. He was a baby, a toddler, a young boy, a teenager, and a man. He did all this as a way of receiving us back into fellowship with Him. He was redeeming what He was taking on. He was taking on human nature, and so it was that He was redeeming human nature. When He saves us, He receives us. But as a result, when He saves us, we receive Him. And when we receive what He assumed to Himself, which was a mortal body, we are in fact receiving a cosmos remade. There is no way to receive the child in the manger without receiving what that child was given, which is all rule and authority, dominion and power, world without end.
This leaves us with a choice. If we receive Him, we are also receiving what He received. When we welcome this child, we of necessity must welcome the children. There is no way to welcome the Lord without also welcoming His dominion.
And this is why the perennial, constant choice is always between Christ and Herod. Either the children are brought to Christ so that He might bless them, or soldiers go out from Herod so that they might slay them. It is either the blood of Christ, redeeming the children of men, or it is the blood of the children of men, polluting the thrones of men. There is no other way, no other option. If you will not have Christ-sons for rulers, then you have made your choice—you will have the Herod-apes for rulers.
Whenever we talk about the “true meaning of Christmas,” we must always keep this truth immediately before us. The central Christian message has always been that Jesus is Lord. We celebrate His birth because He was born among us in order to become Lord. Now that He has been established in that rule, we can commemorate His birth because we also remember to commemorate His coronation. Without the Ascension, Christmas is nothing. (p. 78-79)
Of course you must be aware that in other chapters he teases all this out in much more detail. Thus he deals with accusations of ‘theocracy’; he discusses church/state relations; he looks at ‘Christian nationalism; he discusses things like civil disobedience, and so on.
So to get the fuller picture of what he is on about, you either need to get his book and read it for yourself, or you need to read some forthcoming articles of mine where I quote further from the volume. In other words, do not be so eager to consign him to the flames simply because of the few quotes I have shared here.
Every quote has a context, and it behooves you to check out the entire context before throwing the first stone – or bursting forth in praise!
