Thanks for the kind words. It’s fun to meet another O’Donovan fan. I think Resurrection and Moral Order is one of the most masterful treatments of Christian ethics I’ve ever read. It’s had a huge influence on me (and at my blog, I did a chapter-by-chapter synopsis of the book a few years ago, if you ever want to look it up).

Also, your point about Baptist history is really interesting to me. Thanks for mentioning that.

Frank,

I agree that we ought not be political zealots, and I think that O’Donovan’s explication of ‘render unto Ceasar’ is the most interesting I’ve ever read. He basically argues that we render unto Ceasar out of indifference–it doesn’t matter, since political power has been delegitimized by the Gospel (though not, he points out) defeated.

I don’t think that anyone takes you for an anarchist, and I think we’re all on board with the Gospel winning. The question is, what does it win–and is it bad to view the civil law as creating conditions that make it more conducive for it to win. Does the Gospel also win obedience of the nations, or just of individuals? Notice, for O’Donovan the nations recognize the authority of Jesus and so their own authority is constituted around that. At one point, he argues that the state serves the Church by recognizing its own limitations–a point that I think is helpful and that could guide political activism of a certain sort.

In a world were the government was cruel, and capricious and despotic, Christ and the Apostles commanded that the believer obey them and pray for them. That’s shocking because we’re in a far less-despotic realm with far more liberty to live as we please and we want to take our Caesar into the political steel cage and see who can climb out.

In my view, and I think also in most of DW’s view, the Gospel wins. DW sees it as some kind of teleological winning like leaven taking over the loaf, which is fine I guess — but in my view, political activism is like trying to paint over rust. You can prime it and coat it and bust an elbow on it, but if you paint over rust the rust will show through.

The Gospel is not a rust-remover: it is a rust-reverser. It turns the process around, and changes people who only want to serve themnselves into people who are compelled to serve others even unto death. If we were doing that, I’ll bet we wouldn’t have to worry about the law so much.

:-)

As a side note, as a fellow “reformed Baptist” my perceptions on political engagement and the mission of the Kingdom of God changed through reading other Baptists in the original.

If you read Issac Backus, Andrew Fuller and William Carey you see this clearly. If you read Backus he was anything but a supporter of the separation of church and state. Fuller and Carey were driven to launch the Baptist mission movement because they believed, in the same way Douglas Wilson does, that the gospel would have victory in this world and would transform individuals, communities and nations.

Baptists have a mixed bag history when it comes to views on the state. Not saying you have to agree with it, just saying there are other ways to be reformed Baptist than anti-statist :)

Thanks for the O’Donovan quote, I’ve enjoyed his work on ethics, I’ll have to check this one out as well.

Oh, I don’t feel bad at all. If anything, I feel a bit vindicated. It’s always fun reading arguments I would have made, except they are (a) made by people much smarter than I and (b) expressed much more clearly than I.

Can’t wait for the book. I love that series, and I hope to review Paul Spear’s new book here in the next few weeks.

Don’t feel bad, Matt. Much of what I wrote in the comboxes is cut and paste from my forthcoming book Politics for Christians: Statecraft as Soulcraft, which will be published by InterVarsity Press in March 2010. You can read more about it here: http://www.ivpress.com/cgi-ivpress/book.pl/code=2814