Welcome to my weekly digest for May 13, 2022. For new subscribers, this contains a roundup of my recent writings and podcasts, as well as links to the best articles from around the web this week. You can control what emails you get from me by
I also feel the desire to comment on part of Wood's American Reformer post about
"At that time I couldn’t understand how a Christian could vote for someone like Donald Trump. This, I assumed, would do irreparable damage to the witness of the church."
This reminds me of one of John Piper's essays in the leadup to the 2020 presidential election, which essentially seemed to accept the same premise: Trump is uniquely evil among politicians. To me this has to be one of the most successful modern gaslighting operations. Remember the ire George W. Bush wrought for starting two unnecessary wars that led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands? Remember his and Obama's vast expansions of the domestic spying apparatus? Remember Obama starting the precedent of killing Americans without trial? Et cetera. I don't want to belabor the point, but the scale of the atrocities regularly committed by the US government and how they're treated as completely normal until the news media convince people otherwise is astounding.
I can understand a Christian refusing to vote for Trump, but it seems only consistent if that applies to all potential presidential mass murderers. Treating him as a unique evil only shows the stranglehold that mainstream media have over the perceptions of so many, including Christians. Now, given that that perception is mainstreamed, the question of how support for Trump may affect Christian witness is a somewhat separate question, which I will save for another time.
"The Kellerites propound to abhor division among Christians, and yet I have found them far more divisive than they admit. This is captured in the common trope: “Punch right, coddle left.” Those who are devoted to the third-wayism of Keller generally appear to assume the worst from one side of the political spectrum and give the benefit of the doubt to—or at least provide an apologetic for—the other."
"But one of my concerns about the third way, “winsome” model for politics is how it often seems to incline its adherents to be beholden to the perspective of the contemporary status quo—what the kids call “the Narrative.”
Precisely. Because of the cultural dominance of the left, the "third way" model, by treating left and right as symmetrically bad but generally accepting said "Narrative," default to "punching right, coddling left."
"Here is where the Kellerites, and also the Christian center-right, could really learn from the left (including the Christian left). Politics is the prudential pursuit of justice. The left is quite clear on this. Most Christians on the left are passionate about the pursuit of justice (as they perceive it), and they are not overwrought in concern about how their political actions will help or hinder the reception of the gospel message. They have, I would argue, a better understanding of the nature of politics."
I think this is true, but, being leftists they don't have all the megaphones in society telling them how evil they are and so they don't have to feel as concerned about how likable they are.
"However, on certain issues there is often a clear moral asymmetry in the approaches of the contemporary sides, and there is certainly an asymmetry among the issues themselves. One of the other major flaws of the third way framework is that it often creates false moral equivalencies and inhibits the capacity to act in accord with proper political prudence. Some causes are simply more important than others; some issues are black and white; and some strategies are clearly more in accord with justice. Conveniently positioning yourself between positions or failing to act because all strategies are imperfect strategies might make you feel a sense of moral purity and intellectual superiority over those who have made a prudential judgment, but this hesitancy to act is not the same thing as the biblical vision of showing “gentleness and respect.”"
This captures the thoughts I had after reading the French response so well. French seems to think of himself as so above it all because he can criticize imperfect leftists and right-wingers, thus essentially being able to cop out by not having to deal with any nuance or exercise discernment. It's so easy to criticize imperfect things.
David French is insufferable. His best argument against the positive, neutral, negative world concept is "As someone who attended law school in the early 1990s and lived in deep blue America for most of this alleged “neutral” period, the premise seems flawed. The world didn’t feel “neutral” to me when I was shouted down in class, or when I was told by classmates to “die” for my pro-life views." Yes, because he was in the extreme lefty environment of a law school during this period and it felt negative, the whole concept can be tossed out. It's simply amazing he has the lack of self-awareness to write "When fear and hatred dominates discourse, a commitment to justice and kindness and humility is precisely what the moment requires."
What I find hilarious, however, is how he sees the amount of opposition ("periodic gang-tackling, from both sides of the field") he receives in his inbox as evidence that he is "committed to biblical justice while also rejecting political partisanship." No, the only reason he has the platform he does (as in the pages of The Atlantic) is because lefties are totally ok with promoting a lefty Christian whose schtick is throwing mud at right-wingers, especially Christian ones. The left will never see him as one of their own despite his being an apologist for them, and obviously Christians who aren't leftists aren't crazy about him. But he thinks he's somehow mastered "the third way" and "non-partisanship" because no one likes him.
I also feel the desire to comment on part of Wood's American Reformer post about
"At that time I couldn’t understand how a Christian could vote for someone like Donald Trump. This, I assumed, would do irreparable damage to the witness of the church."
This reminds me of one of John Piper's essays in the leadup to the 2020 presidential election, which essentially seemed to accept the same premise: Trump is uniquely evil among politicians. To me this has to be one of the most successful modern gaslighting operations. Remember the ire George W. Bush wrought for starting two unnecessary wars that led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands? Remember his and Obama's vast expansions of the domestic spying apparatus? Remember Obama starting the precedent of killing Americans without trial? Et cetera. I don't want to belabor the point, but the scale of the atrocities regularly committed by the US government and how they're treated as completely normal until the news media convince people otherwise is astounding.
I can understand a Christian refusing to vote for Trump, but it seems only consistent if that applies to all potential presidential mass murderers. Treating him as a unique evil only shows the stranglehold that mainstream media have over the perceptions of so many, including Christians. Now, given that that perception is mainstreamed, the question of how support for Trump may affect Christian witness is a somewhat separate question, which I will save for another time.
More broadly, Wood's piece is fantastic.
"The Kellerites propound to abhor division among Christians, and yet I have found them far more divisive than they admit. This is captured in the common trope: “Punch right, coddle left.” Those who are devoted to the third-wayism of Keller generally appear to assume the worst from one side of the political spectrum and give the benefit of the doubt to—or at least provide an apologetic for—the other."
"But one of my concerns about the third way, “winsome” model for politics is how it often seems to incline its adherents to be beholden to the perspective of the contemporary status quo—what the kids call “the Narrative.”
Precisely. Because of the cultural dominance of the left, the "third way" model, by treating left and right as symmetrically bad but generally accepting said "Narrative," default to "punching right, coddling left."
"Here is where the Kellerites, and also the Christian center-right, could really learn from the left (including the Christian left). Politics is the prudential pursuit of justice. The left is quite clear on this. Most Christians on the left are passionate about the pursuit of justice (as they perceive it), and they are not overwrought in concern about how their political actions will help or hinder the reception of the gospel message. They have, I would argue, a better understanding of the nature of politics."
I think this is true, but, being leftists they don't have all the megaphones in society telling them how evil they are and so they don't have to feel as concerned about how likable they are.
"However, on certain issues there is often a clear moral asymmetry in the approaches of the contemporary sides, and there is certainly an asymmetry among the issues themselves. One of the other major flaws of the third way framework is that it often creates false moral equivalencies and inhibits the capacity to act in accord with proper political prudence. Some causes are simply more important than others; some issues are black and white; and some strategies are clearly more in accord with justice. Conveniently positioning yourself between positions or failing to act because all strategies are imperfect strategies might make you feel a sense of moral purity and intellectual superiority over those who have made a prudential judgment, but this hesitancy to act is not the same thing as the biblical vision of showing “gentleness and respect.”"
This captures the thoughts I had after reading the French response so well. French seems to think of himself as so above it all because he can criticize imperfect leftists and right-wingers, thus essentially being able to cop out by not having to deal with any nuance or exercise discernment. It's so easy to criticize imperfect things.
David French is insufferable. His best argument against the positive, neutral, negative world concept is "As someone who attended law school in the early 1990s and lived in deep blue America for most of this alleged “neutral” period, the premise seems flawed. The world didn’t feel “neutral” to me when I was shouted down in class, or when I was told by classmates to “die” for my pro-life views." Yes, because he was in the extreme lefty environment of a law school during this period and it felt negative, the whole concept can be tossed out. It's simply amazing he has the lack of self-awareness to write "When fear and hatred dominates discourse, a commitment to justice and kindness and humility is precisely what the moment requires."
What I find hilarious, however, is how he sees the amount of opposition ("periodic gang-tackling, from both sides of the field") he receives in his inbox as evidence that he is "committed to biblical justice while also rejecting political partisanship." No, the only reason he has the platform he does (as in the pages of The Atlantic) is because lefties are totally ok with promoting a lefty Christian whose schtick is throwing mud at right-wingers, especially Christian ones. The left will never see him as one of their own despite his being an apologist for them, and obviously Christians who aren't leftists aren't crazy about him. But he thinks he's somehow mastered "the third way" and "non-partisanship" because no one likes him.