Doug Wilson, Christian Nationalism & Theocracy: A Deep Dive with Nathan & Cameron

Nathan (00:01)

Hello and welcome to Thinking Out Loud. I'm your co-host Nathan Rittenhouse.

Cameron (00:05)

and I'm your co-host Cameron McAllister. In this episode, we talk about Doug Wilson, who has been in the news quite a bit lately. He's been on CNN and he recently sat down for an interview with Ross Douthat on the Interesting Times podcast. He is a outspoken Christian nationalist. And we talk a little bit about that political vision of Christianity. We talk a lot about the appeal of a Doug Wilson, who is an articulate exponent of this view, especially in a time of cultural upheaval and great uncertainty. This will be helpful to you as you think about the political outworkings of the faith and as we seek to honor Christ, his word, and his people in a very confused and strange time.

Nathan (00:07)

We need to talk about Doug Wilson again. I don't know, do we briefly mention him in the rise of Christian nationalism? Maybe a couple of months ago, this was a conversation. There's a continued conversation around him, his theology and his political theory. Ross Douthat in the Interesting Times podcast recently interviewed him on this. And I would love Cameron to get your take on what we're seeing here. I'm assuming on one hand you're going to say there's nothing new here.

theologically, however, it's something new here in that people are paying attention and there's so much interest in it. And so can you maybe line out for us the traditional Doug Wilson view of theocracy. So just, I mean, maybe that's a bit of a harsh term for it, but maybe it's exactly right. And then why you think there's an interest in it right now. And ⁓ we'll fill in some details as we go.

Cameron (00:52)

Sure. Yeah. Sure.

Yeah.

all good questions. Doug Wilson has been around for a long time. mean, he first crossed my radar years ago when he debated Christopher Hitchens. He had a very different public profile at that time because there's a famous clip that went pretty viral where he put Christopher Hitchens on the spot. Doug Wilson is quite articulate. He is a gifted communicator. He's a good writer.

Nathan (01:31)

Mm-hmm.

Cameron (01:34)

And he's, so he's been, he's been doing this. He's been pastoring for almost 50 years now. So he's, he's been busy for a long time. He's written many books. So here are some details about him also. He is situated in Moscow, Idaho. He has a prominent church there, but he also, their church has bought up significant portions of property around that area, cafes and all of that. And they basically are, it's a kind of, you don't want to speak, I don't want to use the ominous

terms here, but it is a sort of kingdom. I think that's how they would look at it. And in recent years, interest has grown in Doug Wilson because he is an outspoken Christian nationalist. I don't think he likes the term theocrat. He seems to resist that one, but he's, he's happy to embrace Christian nationalist. And so what, what, does he mean by that? He actually has a very carefully worked out political.

Nathan (02:23)

No.

Cameron (02:33)

philosophy and theology. And it's very clear if you listen to that interview with Ross Douthat or if you listen to any other interviews with him, he's good at talking about it. He knows his stuff. So he would say in broad strokes that secularism is a failed project. And because of that, we're seeing so much destruction and breakdown in our culture. we need Christendom, doesn't he calls it? Again, he's speaking in broad strokes in these interviews.

Christendom 2.0. A Christendom that is for the 21st century. Mistakes have been made in the past. He readily admits that. In other words, we don't want Geneva, Calvin's Geneva. He's ⁓ a reformed guy, so he's a Calvinist, and he's an outspoken.

Nathan (03:21)

but he doesn't shy away from the phrase

Calvinist Republic.

Cameron (03:26)

He does not. So what's the interest in him? Well, occasionally, so there are a couple of different ways to answer that. Occasionally, so he's a very gifted communicator and he's attracted a big audience. So he's got that. He also has a publishing house, Canon Press, I think it's called. And they've been in the news quite a bit recently for Christopher Wolf's, the case for Christian nationalism.

Nathan (03:27)

Okay, yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Cameron (03:55)

which is a book I took a gander through it, didn't read the whole thing. It's as bad as it sounds when you actually look into the book, but they put out those kinds of, other kinds of books as well, but those kinds of.

Nathan (04:06)

Well, but he would say Canon Press

is a byproduct of his theology being marginalized by Big Eva or the evangelical machine who didn't have room for his theology and so they were forced to kind of start their own, but theirs is the one who has some lasting influence.

Cameron (04:23)

Yeah, your institutions

have gotten, you know, have capitulated to the culture and so therefore we built our own institutions kind of deal. He also, but journalists have gotten very interested in him as well occasionally, you know, and so he appeared not too long ago on CNN as well, was interviewed by a female reporter who was very keen to ask him about his views on, his patriarchal views. Again, that's not, that he would claim

that title, he would say, I am patriarchal.

Nathan (04:53)

Well,

so can I interrupt you here? Because I think this is one of the interesting things in his communication style. It's like, um, it would be akin to, and this is not applying to him, but like think of this. We we've lived in a time in which there's been kind of a, a liberal or secular order on there are certain bywords where somebody would be like, um, being accused of being racist or being accused of being a Nazi is a horrible thing. Unless there's the move where somebody is like, you're racist. And then the other person's like,

Yeah I am, so what?

And so there's a little bit of a, so like, you're patriarchal. And he'd be like, yes, I am. And then where does the, there's what, do you respond to that? Because you're not playing by the, so you listen to a CNN reporter, ask him something like that. And he'd be like, yeah, I embrace that. Yeah, I did say that about those people. ⁓

Cameron (05:30)

Yes. Yes. Where do you go?

It's an odd, yeah, it brings you to an

impasse because you think it's not a gotcha. If the person said, you're, you, well, this sounds like Christian nationalism. It is, and I am.

Nathan (05:53)

Yeah,

I am. Okay.

Cameron (05:57)

Yes. So what's his appeal? Well, his appeal is, I think, very straightforwardly that he offers clarity for people in a very confused age. He talks about this too. Now he has a particular theory about this and it involves men. So he thinks that in recent years, men have taken such a beating in the kind of postmodern world. So it's the pronounced aggression or

just disdain for men combined with grave economic uncertainty. Those are the two big factors that he thinks are contributing to his audience. He says this in the doubt that interview. So you have that it is, it has created a space where many men are tired of being treated treated like second class citizens, but they're also angry and frustrated because of the lack of opportunity opportunities that they have in the current cultural arrangement.

And so they're very drawn to his vision, his Christian nationalist vision of a restored Republic where God is at the forefront, Christian values are at the forefront and that this structures our society. Now, Douthat is very keen to ask him lots of questions about how, how precisely those laws will be spelled out. Will this look like, and is, you know, ⁓ the law is under a caliphate for instance, or, know,

How will people be treated if there's infidelity in marriage, for instance? What will the laws look like there? Or if somebody tries to, there's a really interesting part in the conversation, Nathan, actually, where he talks about how when there's a large, I think they talk about a large Hindu statue that's in some, in Texas, that's right. And so Douthat wants to say, so that would be illegal.

Nathan (07:43)

Statute in Texas.

Cameron (07:53)

in your ideal arrangement and your Christian Republic. And his answer, which I think brings us to the heart, I think, of some of the problems here, his answer is, well, in my Republic, even doing something like that would be unthinkable. There would be no necessity for laws. Nobody would even think to do that. And that, yeah, let me pause there for a second, because I think that brings us to some very real.

I think a departure from reality here.

Nathan (08:25)

So, ⁓ let me go with a half step with you. Because Douthat does walk him through the history ⁓ of Calvinistic Protestantism and its influence on the Western world or what we maybe call the First World. And he has some theological questions about how a group that believes so deeply in the sovereignty of God does maintain such a high degree of political activism. ⁓ And he responds to that in some ways.

I think there is a bit of a question still lingering there. ⁓ Can I ask you, because I think from a, ⁓ maybe your baseline American evangelical looking in on this and some of the things he said, there's kind of this shocking like, and toward the end of the interview, Douthat asked him, you know, when I read the New Testament, I don't see this political vision. And he said, no, this is an Old Testament base. We rely very much on the Old Testament.

for a lot of our political theory here. So, put my cards on the table, I would have a different way that I conceptualize the relationship between the Old New Testament from Doug Wilson, and that would be the distinguishing feature that therefore would lead me to some very different conclusions and outcomes. That being said, I think he is being very consistent with a historical reformed Calvinism in his biblical usage and interpretation as it relates to political

Cameron (09:24)

Mm-hmm. Yep.

Nathan (09:54)

theory and cultural engagement. Can you say something, because you're a little more closer in the, or adjacent within the Presbyterian world, of how does the Doug Wilson translate maybe among other Presbyterians? ⁓ Because there would be more recognition, I think, in his biblical interpretive style.

Cameron (10:12)

Yeah.

Yeah. And that's the elephant in the theological elephant in the room here. So I can say that from some of my circles, there are a lot of people who are quite sympathetic to Doug Wilson. And I have even to the point where certain, I know of certain classical schools that use his, use his books in their curriculum and fair now cards on the table. I take that as a red flag and my views.

are more in sympathy with yours, Nathan, when it comes to the relationship between the Old Testament and the New Testament.

So, I don't know if I can answer this in a very satisfactory manner, Nathan. I mean, there is a reason, so there is such a thing as being confessionally reformed, where you are much more invested in, yes, the historic confessions of the Reformation, and your interest in the Reformation,

Nathan (11:08)

Mm-hmm.

Cameron (11:20)

has more to do with reforming the church Catholic, smaller see Catholic. It is not, and it's not an explicit political vision. In fact, and if you look at somebody like Luther, even, sadly, there's often a stark contrast between a person's stated views and their biography. And that's absolutely present with Luther. Although I find Luther wonderful as a theological voice.

I have, you know, somebody else who articulates my thoughts there really well and better than I ever could is Miroslav Volf, who absolutely loves Luther, is appalled by some aspects of his life, but finds him to be a deeply moving theological guide. I'm in the same boat. But Luther had a very healthy separation, at least in writing and on paper and in his ideal world between the kingdom of God.

and a theocratic vision that would see it realized on earth. His hope was eschatological, is the way I would put it. So, there is, that is a distinct position within the confessional reformed world, and that's where I would stand. Doug Wilson is not, yeah, is somewhere very different, yeah.

Nathan (12:33)

Yeah, so thanks for.

I think that I just want to thank you for saying that because I think there are a lot of people that I bump into that ⁓ there was that whole Young Restless and Reform movement, which I think is still to a certain degree ⁓ alive and well. the political implications of that and its historical roots were not entirely thought out. Like a practical example of this, I remember when I was living in Massachusetts and going to Gordon Conwell, a lot of churches said, you know, actually we stopped doing weddings.

We do religious marriages. So if a couple wants to come to us, you know, and have, and have our church, ⁓ use our church, cause there's all these lawsuits about what if, you know, same sex couples want to, you know, use the church or what if they asked the preacher and the preacher doesn't want to do. So they said, actually, we don't do any of this. You go down to the courthouse. We'll go with you, sign the, sign the papers, the justice of the peace gives you your tax exempt legal status. ⁓ you know, whatever that means to be married legally.

Cameron (13:25)

Hmm.

Nathan (13:36)

And then we'll come back to the church and we'll have a religious ⁓ service, a Christian religious service of marriage. so instead of the minister saying, ⁓ now pronounce now on behalf of you, so you would say, you know, as a minister of the gospel on behalf, on behalf of the state of Massachusetts, I pronounce you man and wife. What they, some of the churches are doing and saying, okay, actually the legal stuff, the state part has already been done. And so now I'm pronouncing you man and wife as a minister of the gospel.

Cameron (14:06)

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Nathan (14:07)

The end. so

that was, that was seen as a, and a lot of other countries in the world do this. And I think this probably is the way forward, Cameron, for churches who are thinking about how to work that out. As they know, we have a very religious and covenantal with God vision of what marriage is. If the state wants to define it in a different way, so be it. And we'll try to live with that incompatibility, but we don't need our ministers to be agents, both of the state and of the gospel in the wedding ceremony in the church building.

And for, you know, a whole host of reasons, people are like, yeah, that actually seems like a pretty good way to handle that. Your older, more reformed Presbyterians and others would say, no, this is, this is a bad move. This is stepping back from culture. We actually do need to have a voice in here and really be working at this, ⁓ union of maintaining this definition. And so that was one of the first times that I had really seen kind of the, practical implications or the rubber hitting the road of saying,

No, this is important for us theologically not to cede ground to the state in these categories, but we really do need to advocate for the state coming around to our position on our religious definition of marriage. And so that was a good learning experience for me to watch those conversations happening. so Doug Wilson is just that posture ⁓ amplified across all sectors of what traditionally would have been a separation of church and state. It's like, no, we can put this back together.

and secularism has failed, why not let the Church? And the Catholic Church has done this too, the whole integralist movement. It's not just ⁓ Calvinist Protestantism that's worked on this project in the past. So just be clear there.

Cameron (15:52)

Absolutely. No, he is, he is being very consistent within that, within that kind of vision. The word dominion is often used and there are, there are pockets of this. I've, I've, mean, Doug Wilson is, it's not new. I worked with a speaker years ago and I'm going to leave him unnamed who was a prominent apologist, did really wonderful work. And at one point there was a Q and A Nathan and

somebody brought up from the Old Testament, and this will bring in some uncomfortable points from the interview here, but somebody brought up from, you know, old stoning laws that had to do with, you know, say, so this person asked in the Q &A, keep in mind, this is a public Q &A, do you believe that homosexuals should be stoned? And this speaker said, yes. And then it was just sort of, and all of the teammates were kind of trying to,

Rapidly can see their eyes bulging out of their heads thinking how we're do damage control with all this so this the speaker then went on to Go become more deeply engrossed in these kinds of circles and is very much a part of that that theocratic kind of work yeah theocratic kind of vision and Yeah

Nathan (17:04)

What

is his distinction between Christian nationalism and theocracy?

Cameron (17:10)

I think he, I don't know. So I ⁓ know he's probably made it in writing. I get the impression in the interview that he thinks the word theocracy is a little bit too close to Islam and that that is the main reason he wants to avoid it. Also probably because, I mean, I suppose in certain parts of the interview, he talks about what he is suggesting is a little softer.

than some of the historical instances that mean, hence the, mean, you're not going to use a phrase like christen christened them 2.0. But again, let me go back to what.

Nathan (17:36)

Mm-hmm.

I think you said theocratic liberalism.

No, theocratic libertarian. Yeah.

Cameron (17:47)

Libertarianism, yes. So he's

not a fan ⁓ of liberalism, although he admits that there were certain political goods from which he benefited that came of.

Nathan (17:55)

Those had to be extracted

like teeth from him, but he did get there.

Cameron (17:59)

He got there. He got there. mean, he's honest in these interviews and you're right, Nathan, he is consistent. So, well, here's the uncomfortable truth is I think a lot of people who flirt with some of these ideas, who think, who will say something that sounds relatively innocuous, like, well, I just think we need prayer back in our schools. I just think we need to remember God in this country. This country has forgotten God. One of the things that Doug Wilson says there is, liberal, he says that secularism is a failed project, but he also says we need to stop making God angry, I think.

Nathan (18:29)

Mm-hmm.

Cameron (18:30)

So

we need to repent. And for him, what that means is, you know, get, get rid of abortion, bring back sodomy laws, things like that. So he, but certain people would say, wouldn't, wouldn't use that explicit language. They would say, you know, we just need, you know, we need, we need God and family back at the center of American life. They're going to hear a Doug Wilson who's very articulate, who doesn't sound like a buffoon, who doesn't sound like a barbarian in these interviews has a clearly.

thought out political philosophy, he calls himself a Birkian conservative for goodness sakes. know, doubt that kind of, okay, I have my doubts about that, but as do I, by the way. But they hear that. I think, so I think a lot of people will basically are close to, are persuadable there. And, you know, I believe in persuasion, but I think a lot more people, if they hear him think,

Nathan (19:07)

Yeah.

Okay, yeah.

Cameron (19:24)

I mean, I've known of several people who have basically crossed over and said, yeah, no, I'm in this camp. I think this is what this country needs.

Nathan (19:29)

But

I've known a lot of people too who are confused by the term. They're like, hey, I'm a Christian and I love America, so I'm a Christian nationalist. And I was like, that's maybe, the term is confusing. yeah, it does.

Cameron (19:40)

the term is confusing.

We

did two whole episodes on Christian nationalism as well, where we talked a lot about what do we mean by, precisely by Christian nationalism, because it's used so loosely.

Nathan (19:55)

So let's do a little something here that, so on one hand, the theology is not new. Doug Wilson is not new. He's not saying new things. You gave us a, ⁓ and I think it's his own speculation of why does he have the influence that he does now. Obviously, relationships with Pete Hegseth and some other government employees at higher levels ⁓ are going to elevate his profile as well.

But the, so the thing is, like, you know, the beating down of men in the economic situation. How did you and I miss that? Where did we, how did you, how did we dodge the beating or the ⁓ unsettledness that generates this level of interest? What, I mean, we should, shouldn't we be prime demographics of those who came of age during the great financial recession and

Cameron (20:40)

Mmm, yeah.

Nathan (20:48)

I mean, obviously there a whole lot of things I can look at in my life that are maybe economically not on track of where people think I should be at this phase, but I don't embody that in a way that makes me think, oh, you know what?

Cameron (21:02)

Well, I suppose I don't think there's any good way I can answer this. can, there are some anomalous features of both you and I. You are in a, we're both situated in very good family situations. That's redundancy there in this sentence. We both, come from good families. We come from good Christian heritage in the sense that we're very grounded. We have, we're rooted. You're more rooted than I am for sure, but we have a degree of rootedness.

Nathan (21:03)

Doug Wilson's got it.

Cameron (21:30)

And we have wholesome communities surrounding us. And that gives us a level of stability that I think sometimes if we're not careful, we can take for granted. Many, many people, many men in North America do not have that. They have very bad relationships with their families. They have bad relationships with their fathers. Their fathers are distant. And they have not had a good example set for them and they do feel isolated. And so thus they're more susceptible to

the kind of discouragement that comes from some of these forces. But in another sense, so there, think that is a factor. And I do think, I know that in my own case, I have a tendency to downplay some of the, what's called the crisis of masculinity. My, my temptation is to roll my eyes at a phrase like this, but no, clearly something, something is there. There is a real problem and there, and it does need to be a threat. Yes.

Nathan (22:17)

There there there is a real is there yeah, yeah, I'm not looking down my

nose at anybody at all I'm

Cameron (22:26)

No, I've just been somewhat dismissive, I think, in the past. economic uncertainty has huge spiritual ramifications because we're not disembodied creatures. When we're faced with this level of uncertainty, if you look at history and if you look at sociology, it can be quite helpful here, economic uncertainty produces all sorts of strange phenomena.

I mean, we've talked about Musa Al-Gharbi's book on wokeism. Wokeism, these outbreaks of, know, fierce sort of moral fervor and all of that, whether we're talking about, you know, the 1990s and the Politically Correct movement, all the way up to what we've seen recently, they're always tied to economic uncertainty. We talked about Richard Hofstadter's The Paranoid Style in American Politics, which is about a style that emerges a kind of paranoid apocalyptic style.

And it's also tied to economic uncertainty where people feel like their back is against the wall. And I think the operative word is they feel powerless in those moments. Certainly a lot of people feel powerless these days.

Nathan (23:29)

Okay. But. But. But.

But. Okay. I think that's well said. And there are hilarious examples of like, did I read yesterday that like the board of the YMCA is all women? I mean, there are some hilarious ways in which you can say, like even organizations that were, ⁓ give us this day our daily bread.

Cameron (23:46)

Yeah, sure.

Nathan (23:54)

Don't worry about tomorrow. Your Heavenly Father knows what you need. mean, there are the teachings of Jesus in and of themselves, if we were to lean into them, do seem like they would stabilize us in such a way that we're not as...

Cameron (24:11)

Gruntle taking it back. Well, here's the other thing, Nathan. So I don't think those ultimately are the main factors that make him appealing. That, you know, there's a crisis of masculinity and economic uncertainty. So I think that's part of it, but I don't even think that's most of it. I think in times of great cultural upheaval and uncertainty, people are deeply attracted to certainty and clarity and focus. There's huge appeal.

Nathan (24:12)

Yeah.

okay.

Caesarism as it was

once called.

Cameron (24:40)

Absolutely. No, here's, he, one point he, he refers to the Bible as a manual. You know, we have a manual for how we're to live. That's not how I think of scripture. I don't think it is, think of it as a precise manual. I think of it as, well, I mean, it's a moral vision, but ultimately I think it is, think of it as the grand narrative. But Doug Wilson, mean, it's, you know, it was a throwaway comment. You know, I don't want to tie too much to that and, you know, fairness to him, but he has a clear program.

And he has absolute certainty and conviction about where we need to go. And I think people want guidance and direction. And I think that's a big part of his appeal. He's very, and he's articulate about it and he has a big platform. That's it.

Nathan (25:20)

Think about how this works

to, yeah, just to go along with that of how does this work in any other kind of training in life? You have a vision, like you're like, Hey, you know what? That person's a great athlete. They're great at this martial art. They're a bodybuilder. And then I will get them to write a program for me and I will do this thing every day and I'll eat this and I will get these results. And so that's, that's phenomenally helpful when somebody can do that for you. ⁓ in certain aspects and avenues, when you're

thinking about re-engineering the entire social structure of a culture, first of all, I don't think his vision is going to come to pass in the way that he thinks it is. ⁓ But that's... yeah, there's...

Cameron (26:02)

It can't. It's

a fantasy. That's the biggest weakness. Back to that Hindu thing. That's the biggest weakness because that, and Douthat pushes back on him and he has a response to it, but saying even historically that such a sculpture or such a statue would be totally imaginable. America is the land of religious wackos, but it's a great melting pot. And that's absolutely right.

Nathan (26:07)

okay.

Cameron (26:28)

This is a country where you have, you know, Mormonism, have Jehovah's Witnesses, and I want to be careful. I'm not saying these people are all wackos. I'm saying you have lots of different.

Nathan (26:35)

⁓ let's go to

the Oneida community, the Shakers, ⁓ all sorts of communes and cults and like,

Cameron (26:40)

Absolutely.

All of it. Yep. All of it. Leading up, you know, all the way up to scientism or on Hubbard. You name it. So his, his notion that we can, first of all, that we could wind the clocks back. Absolute fantasy. There is no winding the clocks back.

Nathan (26:57)

So, well, well,

so what my question is, actually, as I was listening, is he peddling a deeper form of nostalgia? So, so if you think about some of our modern political engagements, they're like, the 1950s would be one form. And Doug Wilson is like, well, what about 1750? You know, there's almost a, like, I see your, I see your 75 year step back and let's go back to 75. ⁓

Cameron (27:08)

Yes.

Yep, yes.

Nathan (27:26)

and catch your breath and do it better.

Cameron (27:29)

There's, I think I've mentioned this before. I quote this in the book that I wrote with my dad, Faith that Lasts. The great novel of the failures of nostalgia is The Great Gatsby. Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. And there's absolutely heartbreaking scene in there because all Gatsby wants to do is rekindle his romance with his old flame, Daisy Miller. And at one point the narrator of the story says, you can't,

go back. You can't reclaim the past and Gatsby just looks at him. Well, why of course you can't. And he gets this kind of wistful look in his eye and he just looks ahead as though the past were just just right ahead out of reach in the in the shadow of his home or something like that. We're very prone to that. Yeah.

Nathan (28:12)

And the corollary, but the

corollary of that story is look at what is destroyed and trying to re-engineer nostalgia.

Cameron (28:22)

Yes,

absolutely. So it's, would, I would almost go so far as to say it's another kind of kind of utopian project, Nathan. And those, those are always horrendous in their outworkings when, when people actually have the power to carry them out. When people really have the tools to realize their utopian visions, it's not, the results are bad. And so I think you're right. think nostalgia is the right word to bring in here.

But I don't think this vision ultimately is the way it's being articulated by him, even in this interview, is honors reality and is realistic about where we're actually at now as well. mean, there are too many things we can't reverse. There are too many technological breakthroughs. Technological breakthroughs are also changes in the way we think and in human consciousness that we can't go back to the 1750s.

It's a, mean, you can't do it. But we were never really there in the way that he seems to be suggesting we were there as well. So I think he's doubly wrong.

Nathan (29:23)

Well, it's also just...

Yeah, well, because this

is because in the attempts in the past, that strain of thinking has had political power, it wasn't just other religions and non-Christians that suffered. A lot of Christians got killed too, because they were the wrong kind of Christian.

Cameron (29:47)

Well, you

have people very close to you in your bloodline.

Nathan (29:50)

I have

a little bit of maybe ⁓ an edge on this of saying that Christian theocracies have not boded well for Christian freedom, let alone religious freedom in general. ⁓ Yeah, I have ancestors that got executed for preaching in the wrong language. mean, you know, it's the... not baptizing their infants correctly or whatever.

Cameron (29:57)

Yeah.

Yeah. Yep. Yep.

So Nathan,

yeah, you finished that.

Nathan (30:21)

Yeah, so it's

not a, okay, I don't think it's going to happen, but it also isn't, it's the same thing when somebody says, hey, like politically wouldn't it be nice if we got back to the 1950s, there are going to be a whole bunch of people who'd be like, ah, pre-civil rights, that wasn't so splendid for everybody. know, same thing of like, well, wouldn't it be great if we went back to the 1750s and there'd be a whole lot of people be like, ah, that wasn't so great if you were, you know, a Catholic in a Protestant territory or a Protestant in Catholic territory or however you want to word that. So.

Cameron (30:35)

⁓ Right.

If you're

black, I mean, it's.

Nathan (30:51)

So

let's honestly look at what was going on in the periods that we think about and then also honestly reflect on the fact that my vision of the future is not bleak, but it is decisively in the hands of the Lord. And there's a weird sense in which, though I haven't been deeply accused of being a Calvinist, I have this weird sense of the sovereignty of God that almost feels like it transcends

some Calvinist language sometimes. In the sense not that at all that it leads to a quietism, it leads to a deep sense of action, but it's action oriented toward a different political goal ⁓ that I rest very much in the goodness of God to complete the promises that he has made about what he wants to do with humanity and the future of the earth. And so I find myself ⁓ running into these kinds of conversations as a way of saying,

Cameron (31:22)

Hmm.

Nathan (31:47)

This is a good example of the things that Cameron and I have been saying. Theology matters. We've kind lived in this great melting pot of, it's all the same. Then you bump into some of these things like, whoa, hang on a second. The way that you think about a few of these key elements has in the past deeply manifest itself in some very diverging ways and probably will do so again in the future. Let's be serious about these.

Cameron (32:01)

Yep. Yep.

So there's, this is of course hardly the last word on the subject. It's meant to help us to continue thinking about it. It'll be interesting to keep an eye on Doug Wilson and kind of what he does and what some of the people who are surrounding him do as well. But especially just to think about the practical outworkings of our theology is an important exercise for some of us. Not everybody's gonna do that.

And that's, that's all right. Not everybody is going to be a restless intellectual or spiritual seeker all the time. And that's okay. But for those, for those who are thinkers and for those who feel called to such a life, the differences make a difference and they do have practical outworkings. And once again, this is where history can be, can be such an aid. You can see some of these thought experiments as they're worked out on the field of actual, of our actual world. You've been listening to Thinking Out Loud.

Nathan (32:56)

Differences make a difference.

Cameron (33:16)

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