Mere Christendom

Douglas Wilson argues for what ought to be uncontroversial: governance by wise Christians. He calls it “mere Christendom” in a recent book by that name, described as democratic politics in a constitutional regime that produces Christian-influenced laws. In other words, the not-so-long-ago culture of the West. Wilson argues that secularism takes us down a dead-end road. The future of a free society requires the restoration of divine authority—not clergy in seats of power, but rather the gospel in the hearts of the powerful. The governors must recognize that they are governed.

An influential Presbyterian pastor, teacher, and author, Wilson calls himself a “theocratic libertarian.” In Mere Christendom, he does not argue that Christian governance is merely compatible with personal liberty, including the liberty of those who don’t believe in the tenets of Christianity. That’s true enough. But more importantly, Wilson argues that recognition of divine authority is necessary for a free society: “Some sort of mere Christendom is the only place where it is possible to gain and maintain true liberty.”

Mere Christendom reads like a jazz improvisation. The book’s contents are drawn from a “smoking slag heap of words” that Wilson has generated on his blog over the years. His grandson took up the challenge and abbreviated and synthesized the material into a book-length treatment of a very First Things question: What should be the role of religion in public life? Ample, answers Wilson. We need divine authority to sustain America’s culture of freedom.

The main argument draws upon the Bible’s warnings against the perils of idolatry. We are hardwired to worship, which means that if we turn away from the true God, we will chase after false gods. There is a political analogue: “The public square cannot be neutral.” Either our civic life will harken to the authority of the true God, or we will organize our common affairs around some other, imagined supreme power, a false god. And because idols are mute, the rejection of the true God in fact clears the way for men to lord over us. Wilson puts it succinctly: “If there is no God above the state, then the state has become god—the point past which there is no appeal.”

As Wilson notes, many assume that a high view of divine authority corresponds to a high degree of control and coercion. But this assumption is mistaken. In Romans 13, St. Paul teaches that the magistrate acts under the authority of God. But note well that God has revealed his will and purpose. The magistrate is accountable. By contrast, when God is not recognized by a body politic, powerful men conjure ideologies to justify their dominion. As Wilson puts it, without mere Christendom, “I am far more likely to be governed by a swaggering bully who recognizes no authority whatsoever above him than by a swaggering bully who feels he needs to justify his behavior from Scripture. In a dispute with the latter, I at least have something to ­appeal to.”

Strictly speaking, the stark opposition—either ­Jesus is acknowledged as Lord, or men are unaccountable ­bullies—overstates the case. An earnest Straussian would identify “natural right” as a constraint upon government. A Catholic like me appeals to “natural law.” But abortion, same-sex marriage, the embrace of reproductive technologies, and the transgender juggernaut suggest that, having dismissed the Creator, our secular culture accords no authority to nature. Thomas ­Aquinas anticipated our unfortunate state of affairs. Darkened by sin, our minds fail to recognize natural truths, which is why God delivered the Ten Commandments to restore, by divine authority, the truths we ought to know by reason alone. A sociopolitical corollary follows: We need a restoration of biblical authority in public life if we’re to have any hope of recovering natural right or natural law.

Another argument for the Christian basis for America’s culture of freedom rests in the foundational role that liberty plays in God’s relations to his creatures. Wilson observes, as have many others, that religious liberty is a distinctly Christian idea, rooted in the fact that fellowship with God requires a free act of ­obedience. Wilson goes further, arguing that “letting other people express their errors without reprisal is a distinctly Christian ideal.” He allows that ­Christendom featured a great deal of persecution (what regime has not?), but he insists that the best of modern liberalism has Christian roots.

St. Paul uses martial imagery: We are to put on the full armor of God. But note well that our belt is truth, and the sword we are to wield is the Word of God. The imperative is to proclaim in word, deed, and truth. Wilson emphasizes patience and forbearance in the face of error and unbelief: “We are given the truth by the grace of God, and part of that truth includes how we are to treat those who have not embraced it yet.” The words of Jesus are our marching orders: “By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 3:35).

In Inventing the Individual: The Origins of Western Liberalism, Larry Siedentop makes a detailed case for Wilson’s assertion that Christianity provided the precondition for the notions that underly the First Amendment and other American guarantees of liberty. Rather than making a historical argument, Wilson relies on straightforward observations about present realities. Our increasingly anti-Christian secular elite harbors hostility to time-honored American freedoms. Recently, John Kerry expressed regret about the First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech. He said it is a “major block” to a purportedly necessary censorship of “disinformation.”

Wilson does not mention the role that belief in God’s governance of human affairs plays in sustaining a culture of freedom. Kerry’s remarks reflect the view that the smart and well-informed must manage and control ­unruly public opinion. The censorship of “­disinformation” is part of the wider technocratic hubris that arises when we no longer believe in divine providence. In his Second Inaugural Address, Abraham ­Lincoln allowed that the final disposition of justice remains in God’s hands. Today, we are harried by social justice warriors who presume to wrest from God the role of final judge, monitoring our speech, even to the point of regulating pronoun use. Wilson is right. When God no longer reigns, freedom is among the first casualties.

Without doubt, our bondage to sin poses the greatest threat to our freedom. After all, isn’t freedom the ability to do what you want? Even by that thin, libertarian definition, secular America fails. People do not marry with the intention of getting divorced. Yet they fail to stay married. Young men are not setting out to die of drug overdoses, yet tens of thousands do so every year. Parents do not aim to neglect their children out of selfishness, disordered behavior, and addiction—yet they do so. In his Letter to the Romans, St. Paul bemoans: “I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate” (7:15). As Christianity recedes, a self-defeating condition of unfreedom prevails.

As I’ve observed many times in this column, even the well-placed feel constrained. The idols of health, wealth, and pleasure command endless sacrifices. I’m depressed by the way in which rich parents press their children to run the gauntlet to get into prestigious universities. The twenty-somethings I meet in New York are often anxious and fearful—not emotions congenial to freedom.

The problem is not merely personal. As the Founders recognized, democratic self-government requires a substantial body of self-governing citizens. A demoralized populace is disordered and unruly. Like children, those who fail to gain self-command must be governed, sometimes with vigilance and a heavy hand. Wilson rightly notes: “A people who are enslaved to their lusts will never be the kind of people who successfully throw off tyrants.” Indeed, they may well erect a tyranny. As Alexis de Tocqueville observed in Democracy in America, an atomized, lonely, and anxious body politic will beg for “an immense and tutelary power, which takes upon itself to secure their gratifications, and to watch over their fate.” We should not be surprised that young people, raised in a post-Christian culture, do not endorse free speech and express high levels of support for socialism.

Count me among those sympathetic to mere Christendom. The old Christendom was imperfect, as Wilson acknowledges. Fallen men don’t construct ideal regimes. The American version of Christendom depended upon a loose-limbed alliance of Protestant denominations that often cooperated, sometimes warred with each other, and until the mid-twentieth century were hostile to Catholicism. But America’s Christian consensus undergirded a decent society, which is not a small thing, as we are discovering in our low and unhappy age—the age of secularism’s triumph. That consensus provided the metaphysical and spiritual foundations for the liberal tradition in America, again imperfect, but far from nothing.

Today, the foundations have weakened, and we’re less free. It will require the rebuilding of spiritual capital to restore a culture of freedom. Putting the Ten Commandments in school rooms is a reasonable place to start. They command, to be sure, but they do not coerce. Parents are free to catechize their children in today’s gospel of autonomy. But at least the kids will have some hint of the truth, a small step toward mere Christendom.