Lux Lucet

Jeffrey Tayler does not like religion in general or Christianity in particular. He makes his stance quite clear. Writing

2016 US presidential candidates. From left to right: Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Hillary Clinton, Marco Rubio, and Jeb Bush.
REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque.

in an article in Salon.com, the contributing editor at The Atlantic made manifest his intense dislike for Christianity and its adherents when he wrote,

Aspirants to the White House, both Democratic and Republican, have, as we all know, begun “announcing,” thus initiating from a rationalists point of view, a media carnival featuring on both sides, an array of supposedly God-fearing clowns and faith-mongering nitwits groveling before Evangelicals and nattering on about their belief in the Almighty and their certainty that if we just looked, we could find answers to many of our ills in the Good Book (Marco Rubio’s deranged religion, Ted Cruz’s bizarre faith: Our would-be presidents are God-fearing clowns).

Tayler, who we learn from the article is both a rationalist and, apparently, an atheist, is all kinds of upset at even the slightest suggestion that God may have something to do with politics. Tayler’s fulmination continues,

The candidates will cloak their true agenda – serving the Lords of Wall Street far more zealously than Our Father who art (or really, art not) in heaven – in pious patter about “values,” about the need to “restore America” and return us to the state of divinely granted exceptionalism President Obama has so gravely squandered. This Season of Unreason will end with the elections of November 2016, but its consequences – validation of the idea taht belief without evidence is a virtue, that religion, and especially Christianity, deserves a place in our politics, our Constitutionally enshrined secularism notwithstanding – will live on an damage the progressive cause…

Professing belief in a fictitious celestial deity says a lot about the content of a person’s character…

With the dapper Florida Sen. Marco Rubio we move into the more disturbing category of Republicans we might charitably diagnose as “faith-deranged” – in other words, as likely to do fine among the unwashed “crazies” in the red-state primaries, but whose religious beliefs would (or should) render them unfit for civilized company anywhere else…

Among the faith-deranged, Rubio stands out. He briefly dumped on magic book [apparently the Bible] for another, converting from Roman Catholicism to Mormonism and then back again…

Yet even as a re-minted Catholic, Rubio cheats on the Pope with a megachurch in Miami called Christ Fellowship. As religion and politics blogger Bruce Wilson points out, Christ Fellowship is a hotbed of “demonology and exorcism, Young Earth creationism and denial of evolution,” as is so intolerant it demands its prospective employees certify they are not “practicing homosexuals” and don’t cheat on their spouses…

It’s a safe bet, in fact, that most scientists have a better grasp on the vital verities than anyone rummaging around in Rubio’s beloved “sacred” tome [again, apparently a reference to the Bible] of far-fetched fiction and foolish figments. Yet of the Republicans, the most flagrant irrationalist is clearly Texas junior Sen. Ted Cruz. For starters, Cruz pandered fulsomely to the faith-deranged by choosing to announce at Liberty University, that bastion of darkness located in Lynchburg, Virginia. Once administered by the late Jerry Falwell, Liberty promises a “World Class Christian education: and boasts that it has been “training champions for Christ since 1971” – grounds enough, in my view, to revoke the institution’s charter and subject it to immediate quarantine until sanity breaks out.

Tayler goes on to suggest that reporters should challenge the religious beliefs of the candidates, rightly asserting that, “After all, they [religious convictions] are essentially wide-ranging assertion about the nature of reality and supernatural phenomena.” He then proceeds to propose a line of questioning that, at least in his mind, will catch Christian candidates on the horns of an unanswerable dilemma.

We will examine Tayler’s questions in a moment. But before doing so, a couple of clarifications are in order. First, many of those attacked by Tayler for their Christianity are themselves likely not Christian, and it is not my intention to defend them as though they were. Marco Rubio, for example, is a practicing Roman Catholic, and thus part of an organization that, not only expressly denies the essential Biblical doctrines of sola scriptura and justification by belief alone, but whose head is the great papal Antichrist of Revelation. Of course, one cannot be too hard on the atheist Tayler for confusing Roman Catholicism with Biblical Christianity. Most professing Evangelicals in the US, and this goes double prominent Evangelical leaders, don’t know the difference either. If Evangelicals can’t get their own story straight, it’s unreasonable to expect an atheist outsider to know perceive there’s a difference. That Rubio suffers no intellectual qualms about combining his Catholicism with attendance at an Evangelical megachurch simply underscores this point.

Second, because Tayler uses the term “Christian” in his article to refer generally to anyone who names the name of Christ, I shall follow him in this. To distinguish Bible believing Christians from those who name the name of Christ, I shall use the terms Evangelical, Bible believers, and Protestants.  In like fashion, I shall distinguish Christianity generally from the religion as taught in the Word of God by referring to the latter as Biblical Christianity.

Third, many of the proposals put forth by presidential candidates under the aegis of Christianity in fact have nothing to do with it. Rather, by their very nature they are actually anti-Christian. The “compassionate conservatism” and “faith-based initiatives” advanced by George W. Bush during the 2000 presidential election cycle are good cases in point. Evangelicals and atheists – some atheists inconsistently hold to the Evangelical principle of limited government – can both denounce such ideas for the fascist claptrap that they are.

That said, let’s look at Tayler’s supposedly unanswerable line of questioning.

Tayler’s Dilemma

Perhaps taking a cue from the false flattery used by the Pharisees and Sadducees during their failed attempts to catch Christ in his words, Tayler proposes that journalists approach Christian candidates in the following manner,

As a Christian, you believe the Bible is, as 2 Timothy 3:16-17 proclaims, the word of God, “profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.” You accept the New Testament, of course, which includes Matthew 5:18’s pronouncement that every last bit of the Bible shall be implemented, including the Old Testament, which enjoins the death penalty for all manner of often minor infractions and approves of behavior that, to put it kindly, is no longer acceptable (at least outside ISIS-occupied territory).

Following this approach, Tayler then proposes that journalists go for the jugular with a series of questions that will, in his mind, embarrass Christian candidates into making contradictions or, better yet, silence them altogether. The questions are,

So, if you accept the Bible in its totality, do you think sex workers should be burned alive (Leviticus 21:9) or that gays should be put to death (Leviticus 20:13)?

Should women submit to their husbands, per Colossians 3:18?

Should women also, as commands 1 Timothy 2:11, study “in silence with full submission?”

Would you adhere to Deuteronomy 20:10-14 and ask Congress to pass a law punishing rapists by fining them 50 shekels and making them marry their victims and forbidding them to divorce forever?

Given that the Bible ordains genocide (as in 1 Samuel 15:3), will you work for the release of Athanase Seromba, the Catholic priest imprisoned for his role in the mass Rwandan slaughter of 1994?

Will you call on Congress to repeal the Thirteenth Amendment and reinstate slavery, since the Bible, in 1 Peter 2:18, de facto sanctions the horrific practice and demands that slaves submit to their “masters with all respect, not only to the good and gentle but also to the cruel?”

And just as Tayler would have journalists mimic the Sadducees, so too can the Evangelical presidential candidate imitate Christ’s response to them, saying, “you are mistaken, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God.” For although Tayler’s line of questioning may prove a treacherous minefield for Rushdoonyite theonomists who believe in the abiding validity of the law in exhaustive detail, it is no problem at all for the Bible believer who has a proper Biblical understanding of the relationship between the Old and New Covenants.

“Injustice” in the Old Testament

While we have no problem with Tayler’s quotation of 2 Timothy 3:16-17, Tayler misquotes Matthew 5:18, thus making the verse appear to say what it does not. Matthew 5:18 reads, “For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled.” Contra Tayler, this verse does not speak about implementing anything, as though it is the job of Christians to carry out all the details of the Old Covenant. Rather, it speaks about fulfilling the law and the prophets. And who is it that does the fulfilling? The previous verse tells us it is Christ himself. “Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill” (Matthew 5:17). Christ fulfilled the ceremonial laws of the Old Covenant that served as a type, of foreshadowing, of the redemptive work fulfilled in the person and work of Christ. As such, Christians do not offer animal sacrifices in a temple, nor are they bound by the Mosaic dietary laws.

Regarding what are called the judicial laws of the Old Covenant – these are the case laws Taylor refers to which he thinks require Christians either to sanction every manner of barbaric injustice or suffer the pains of logical contradiction – these laws expired with the state of ancient Israel and are not binding upon nations today. The Westminster Confession provides the Biblical answer to Tayler’s dilemma in Chapter 19 where it reads,

To them [the people of Israel], also, as a body politic, he [God] gave sundry judicial laws, which expired together with the state of that people, not obliging any other now, further than the general equity thereof may require.

The judicial laws expressed in the books of Moses were the application of the moral law (the Ten Commandments) specifically to the theocracy of ancient Israel. Since that nation no longer exists, it follows that its case law no longer is applicable. This is implied by the Christian principle of the separation of church and state. But although the case law of the ancient Israelite theocracy has expired, the principles of equity – what the Confession calls “the general equity” – that underlie them are still in effect. In other words, if civil penalties attached to a behavior in the Old Testament, it is proper for governments to sanction those activities today with civil penalties. But this does not require Christians to push for the capital punishment of homosexuals as Tayler seems to think.

If one should claim that it is inconsistent to deny that the death penalty applies to homosexuality while maintaining it is appropriate to execute murders, it should be pointed out that the death penalty for murder pre-dated the Mosaic law, being expressed in Genesis 9:6 by God himself with the words, “whoever sheds man’s blood, by man his blood shall be shed.”

The short answer to Tayler’s questions concerning whether they should advocate the burning of prostitutes and homosexuals or require rapists to marry the woman they violated, at least as far as concerns Evangelical presidential candidates, is no. Not only are Evangelicals not logically required to take the stances Tayler thinks they must, but for them to do so would be to abandon the Scriptures in favor of theonomy. Whether candidates who are not Evangelicals are able to make the same claim, I do not propose to answer here.

Tayler’s Women Questions

With his two question designed to bring the righteous wrath of America’s feminist overlords crashing down upon the heads of hapless Christians, Tayler hopes to reduce his opponents to incoherence and silence.

To Tayler’s question, Should women submit to their husbands, per Colossians 3:18?, Biblical the answer, as revolting as it may seem to those whose minds are steeped in feminist poison, is a simple “yes.” God has established male headship in the home. Incidentally, this is not the only place in the New Testament that teaches this principle. See for example, 1 Peter 3:1 and Ephesians 5:22-6:9.

Going further, God has established male leadership in the church. Thus to Tayler’s question about whether women should study, “in silence with full submission,” the answer again is “yes,” for that is what the Bible requires of women.

But if this be sexism in the mind of Tayler, let us make the most of it. For the Bible has even more to say about the place of women than what Tayler seems to think. Not only does God provide for male leadership in the home and in the church, he also provides for it in civil government. It is a disgrace for any nation to be under the leadership of a woman. Isaiah wrote, “As for My people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them. O My people! Those who lead you cause you to err, and destroy the way of your paths.”

The Bible goes even further than that. It actually contradicts the supposed wisdom of this world, which has now told several generations of young women that it is her career, rather than her home and children, that should be her primary focus. Writes Paul, “Therefore I desire that the younger widows marry, bear children, manage the house, give no opportunity to the adversary to speak reproachfully (1 Timothy 5:14). Such talk is philosophical kryptonite to Tayler and other like minded folks. One can almost hear the anguished caterwauling of the feminists should such a thing be so much as whispered in their presence.

Genocide

1 Samuel 15:3 reads, “Now go and attack Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and do not spare them. But kill both man and woman, infant and nursing child, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.” Admittedly, one is tempted to say of this verse, “this is a hard saying, who can hear it?” But it is God who gave the command, it was not Samuel’s or Saul’s idea. God is the creator and ultimate owner of all there is. As such, the world is his to do with what he pleases. He would have been in the right had he destroyed the human race with Adam and Eve’s first sin. But he will have mercy on whom he will have mercy, and has not dealt with us according to our sins nor punished us according to our iniquities.

But though God has the right to wipe out any individual or any nation at any time he chooses, this in no way implies that civil magistrates have the power to decide for themselves to carry out genocide. The cases where Israel was utterly to destroy a city or nation were specific to certain situations commanded by God. There was no standing order given to Israel’s judges or kings that allowed them to destroy any nation at whenever the mood struck them. Absent a specific command from God, the magistrate’s job is limited to the punishment those who practice evil (criminals and enemies foreign and domestic) and the praise those who do what is right. Since God has given his complete revelation in the Scriptures, since there are no prophets giving further revelation from God, it follows that current magistrates are empowered to do only what is specifically sanctioned in the Scriptures: punish criminals and praise those who do what is right. They have no authority out wars of aggression or genocide. For them to do so would be murder and theft.

As a necessary consequence to the above, it follows that Christians should not advocate the release of anyone guilty of genocide. The proper Christian response to genocide is the execution of the guilty party. This includes Athanase Seromba, should he in fact be guilty of the crimes for which he was convicted.

Slavery

Surely this is the trump card of the atheist. The strong tower from which he can lose the fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword upon the heads of the benighted masses of Bible thumping red-state bourgeoisie. After all, have not Christians themselves argued for slavery from the very text of Scripture? Have they not preached this doctrine from Christian pulpits? Have not some of their most prominent theologians, even prominent Protestant theologians, written books defending the peculiar institution? Yes to all, we freely admit. Game, set, match you say? Does this admission not obviously mean the end Evangelicals as a moral force? After all, the very Bible in which they put their trust clearly requires slavery which everyone knows is immoral. O the shame and humiliation of the poor Evangelical! Those moral majority morons are finished. Finished!, I tell you…or maybe not.

After all, not all Evangelicals supported slavery during the time in practiced in the British Empire or America. Perhaps Jeff Tayler has never heard of John Newton or William Wilberforce.

But beyond that, to answer Tayler’s question to Christians about whether they are willing to ask Congress to repeal the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution – the amendment that abolished slavery in the US – not only are Evangelicals not required to do this, but, in fact, it would be a sin for them to do so. The 18th and 19th century abolitionists were right: the Bible forbids slavery.

Yes, the Old Testament has passages that clearly allow for slavery, but this was an allowance that expired with the New Covenant. That this is the case can clearly be seen in Paul’s letter to Philemon, a Bible believing slave owner who lived during the first century. In his epistle to Philemon, Paul makes the case that Philemon should treat Onesimus, an escaped slave belonging to Philemon, not as a slave but as a brother in Christ. And because Onesimus was a brother in the Lord, for that reason, Paul argued that Philemon had the responsibility to set him free. For an fuller treatment of Paul’s argument in Philemon, please see John Robbins’ excellent Slavery & Christianity.

It is true that Peter told servants to obey their masters. Tayler could have added to this Paul’s command, “Bondservants, be obedient to those who are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in sincerity of heart, as to Christ” (Ephesians, 6:5). Do these verses not prove the Bible supports slavery? Do they not contradict what Paul wrote to Philemon? In short, no. Biblical Christianity, unlike Islam or atheist Marxism, is not spread by revolutionary violence. Evangelicals do not demand those who reject Christ submit to their teachings or else. Christians do not punish unbelievers, they persuade them. One of the principles of Christianity is that it is better to be harmed than to harm. Peter calls upon slaves to use their position, unjust as it was, in the service of Christ by cheerfully accepting the wrong done to them.

Does this mean the New Testament is gives no hope of freedom to those in bondage? Certainly not! For Paul writing to the Corinthians says, “Were you called while a slave? Do not be concerned about it; but if you can be made free, rather use it” (1 Corinthians 7:21). There is nothing wrong with those in bondage seeking their freedom. Only let it be done in good order to the glory of God.

Conclusion

Atheists such as Salon’s Jeffrey Tayler have long blamed religion in general, and Christianity in particular, for all the ills in the world. Environmental destruction, racism, sexism, homophobia, patriarchy and terrorism are, in their mind, just a few of the evil fruits chargeable to those whom they view as irrational fools desperately clinging to their guns and religion. In at least some cases, the atheists are correct. Islam is a religion of violence. So is Romanism. Even Judaism has justified violence in the service of Zionism. But they are wildly off base when it comes to Biblical Christianity. For it was Biblical Christianity, rediscovered at the time of the 16th century Protestant Reformation, that created Western Civilization and its children, justice, peace and prosperity.

On the other hand, far from being a shield of the oppressed and friend of the poor, Gordon Clark observed that atheism logically leads to totalitarianism. He put it this way,

Aristotle and Rousseau, not to mention Spengler, have come to a common conclusion in politics: totalitarianism. Since these men had such different backgrounds, this agreement seems to be more than a coincidence. It must be the result of a common presupposition held, perhaps unconsciously, by them all. This underlying presupposition seems to be a non-theistic worldview. If there is no source of rights other than the state, whether with Rousseau it is based on a social convention, or with Aristotle it is as natural a development as the family; if there is no force more powerful than the state; if there is no God who controls states, then totalitarianism is the conclusion to be expected. (A Christian View of Men and Things, p. 98, emphasis mine).

Men such as Jeffrey Tayler cry out about injustice but have adopted a philosophical position that leads straight to tyranny. Not satisfied with arguing for their beliefs, they also seem to feel the need to pour contempt upon those with whom they disagree. And if their tub-thumping shrillness were not embarrassing enough, the New Atheists, with whom Jeffrey Tayler appears to have much in common, also manage to add to it a profound ignorance of both Biblical Christianity and the logical implications of their own atheistic views.

But lest this author come off just as uncharitable toward Jeffrey Tayler as he is toward Christians, it bears mentioning that one can have a certain respect for a fellow of his ilk. He doesn’t beat around the bush. He doesn’t obscure his contempt for Christianity or Christians and Evangelicals behind weasel words. Far from it. He comes right at you and isn’t afraid to call you a flaming fool for believing the Bible is true. At the very least, that makes him interesting.

Also Tayler does appear to have a certain respect for logic. Since Christ is the very logic of God, that puts him closer to God than many who name the name of Christ and yet inconsistently despise the use of rational arguments. Perhaps there’s hope for Jeffery Tayler after all. Bible believers certainly can pray that God would call him to repentance and faith in Christ Jesus.