Add, don't subtract

Ronald Reagan awakened America. He ran on a platform that emphasized standing up to communism abroad and high-taxers domestically. The Bible tells us -- eight times in Deuteronomy, Joshua, and 1st and 2nd Chronicles alone -- to "be strong and courageous," and President Reagan was. Using a coalition of conservatives and libertarians he fought both double-digit inflation and Soviet expansionism, and when he left office both bears were tamed. Soon, Republicans gained a majority in the House of Representatives for the first time in 40 years.In 2006 the parties remain differentiated on foreign policy and abortion, but in other areas-government spending and corruption-Republicans are doing no better than the Democrats of 1994. Many have ignored the small-government principles that brought Ronald Reagan and themselves to office. Arrogance and Abramoff crouch at every Washington door, and it's easy for those in power to think that they'll use it for purposes of righteousness or riches. Either way, government stays big, and libertarians as well as most conservatives are frustrated. The coalition that Ronald Reagan put together is close to a crack-up.

The future of American conservatism depends on the ability of libertarians to understand that liberty without virtue cannot last, and the ability of Christian conservatives to understand that being strong and courageous does not mean demanding ideological purity. Both parts of the coalition need to follow the Reagan practice of reasoning politely and patiently with those who disagree, giving in on secondary matters, and searching for common ground. Both parts of the coalition may need to sacrifice a little.

This paper concentrates on what Christian conservatives should do. It first lays out a basic biblical exegesis that frees Christians from reacting defensively, and provides examples of how our goal should be to add, not subtract. It then explores some of the nuances, including: why America is not the new Israel, why theocracy is not biblically warranted here, what the minimal societal goals for Christians should be, how Christians can steer clear of spam evangelism, how the difficult issue of same-sex marriage should be approached, and how Christ's expansive definition of "neighbor" fits well with the Constitution's first three words: "We, the people."

The basics

My oversimplified advice to American Christian conservatives: Be New Testament, not Old Testament. By this I don't mean that the two parts of revelation are theologically distinct, for as the couplet sums it up, "The New is in the Old contained, the Old is by the New explained." I am suggesting that the emphasis is different: to generalize enormously, the Old concentrates on subtracting, the New on adding, and the success of the American experiment has hinged on our willingness to add.

The Old Testament emphasizes subtracting a family and then a nation (and its land) from the idol-worship that surrounded first Abraham and then Israel. The emphasis was on purity, not evangelism, so God sent Ishmael and Esau into the wilderness, told Joshua to destroy the Canaanites, and instructed Ezra to insist that the Israelites put away foreign wives. To make the Holy Land holy, God commanded a zero tolerance policy: No abominations among you. Nothing. Nada.

The Holy Land was man's greatest opportunity to set up a new kind of Eden. It wasn't the Eden at the beginning of Genesis, because sin still burdened man, the earth yielded its produce reluctantly, and earthly life still ended in death. But it was a semi-Eden-a land flowing in milk and honey-and it had God's semi-presence as He facilitated prophecy and gave specific advice via the casting of lots and the mysterious Urim and Thummim. God chose a particular nation to live in his semi-Eden, provided commandments so they knew what to do day by day, inspired a history so they knew where they came from, and promised them that if they obeyed all would go well.

This holy land, this semi-Eden, was supposed to be spotless, a serious equivalent of Disneyland in which not a single candy wrapper is to stay on the ground for more than a few minutes. Sadly, God's model country, like the Model Cities of the 1960s, turned out to be a model for despair. The great tragedy of ancient Israel was that God's people sinned in a land that of all lands should have been the least conducive to sin. The great lesson is that sin comes from within, not from our surroundings. God was teaching that sin crouches at our door even in the best of environments, whether the original Eden or Israel's semi-Eden. He was teaching man's desperate need for Christ: accept no substitutes!

As early Christians came to understand the meaning of Israel's history, they were ready to understand the New Testament emphasis on adding. The Jewish answer to the question "Who is my neighbor?" was at the most "your fellow Jew," and more often just the Jews who lived close by. Jesus added to that understanding by eating with tax collectors and others seen as sinners, by stating that anyone in need is our neighbor, and by adding women, Samaritans, and even enemy soldiers to the list of God's people.

Instructed to take the gospel to all nations and not concentrate on defending one, Christians were free to evangelize and admit to church membership anyone who confessed faith in Christ, regardless of pedigree, past sins, race, or ethnicity. Would some get in who should not, and as a result would the visible church display visible sin? Absolutely, but a Christian understanding of the omnipresence of sin makes even the best screen only as effective as bed nets against malarial mosquitoes in Africa: they will find a way to get in.

Christian conservatives need to apply such thinking to our political processes. In discussing American conservatism a football metaphor seems appropriate: Better to win the game 35-14 than to emphasize the avoidance of mistakes so that the best we can hope for is a 3-3 tie. Instead of fearfully assuming that nothing will get done unless the federal government does it, and rushing to increase spending whenever a problem arises, we can renew Ronald Reagan's small government coalition by adding to our societal list of problem-solvers the civic and religious groups that often do a better job than government.

We should be willing to work in political coalition with a wide variety of non-Christians, because our goal should not be to subtract the impure by differentiating ourselves from coalition members who don't share our theology or our particular political strategy. Our goal should be to add new opportunities by enlisting all those who agree with us on some issues, even if they disagree on others. I'll offer three examples -- one cultural, one symbolic, and one that's life and death - of how Christian conservatives should add rather than subtract.

The first concerns our culture wars. Year after year Christians have called for boycotts of this or that art exhibition, movie, or television show. For example, in 1999 Christian groups wanted government funding removed from a profane show at the Brooklyn Museum of Art that featured a dung-displaying portrait of the Virgin Mary. The protest led to front-page stories about Christians trying to keep people from viewing art, and to record attendance at the exhibit. It would have been far better to push for a parallel show displaying the work of Christian artists. In 2004 and 2005 we had such parallel shows in the movie theaters: Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ (which reaped a rich bonanza in evangelism and ticket sales) and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Both Christian conservatives and libertarians could salute these examples of adding.

For a way to deal with symbolic issues, compare Judge Roy Moore's plopping down a 2.5 ton block of granite in the rotunda of the Alabama Judicial Building with Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott's defense before the U.S. Supreme Court of a six-foot-tall red granite monolith located about 75 feet from the Texas state capitol building in Austin. Moore's in-your-face Ten Commandments monument gesture gained whoops of support from some Christians but hisses from libertarians, and of course an aggressive response from federal courts. But Abbott, also a Christian, gained broad support by pointing out that a representation of Aztec mythology was already in the state capitol, and he had no problem with that, so others should not have problem with a Judeo-Christian monument. The U.S. Supreme Court and conservatives of many stripes agreed with his "add, don't subtract" thinking.

My last example is the life-and-death matter. Christian conservatives would like to see a constitutional amendment adding protection for human life, but neither culturally nor politically are we there yet, since journalists and many others depict pro-life activities as subtracting freedom. We can save lives and also build support by adding options for women surprised by pregnancy: Instead of asking them to choose between abortion and single parenting-which to many women seems a choice between legal homicide and life imprisonment -we can save lives by making real a third choice, adoption, and not overlooking the possibility of a fourth, marriage. We can add soul-stirring information to the decision process by using ultrasound machines to show the baby who could be killed. We can add other people to the decision process by requiring that parents and the unborn child's father be informed.

Few of my recommended actions would be sufficient for those who demand an Old Testament defense of America as the new holy land, but they're consistent with the New Testament approach practiced by Paul and others in mixed cultures from Rome to the present: Instead of working fruitlessly to subtract evil from the land, add the good. American conservatism can have a bright future, with God's grace, if we are strong and courageous in developing positive alternatives to the cultural negativities around us. But if we merely praise our own Christian circles and curse the darkness outside them, we will soon be surrounded by it.

This type of guerrilla cultural warfare can be more difficult than an invasion of Canaan-but God calls Christians to help transform the societies surrounding them. In the history books of the Old Testament "Be strong and courageous" clearly had a military edge. Yet by New Testament times, when the early Christians were in a culture war without clear front lines, the apostle Paul was telling the Corinthians, living in one of the empire's most dissolute cities, "Be strong. Let all that you do be done in love (I Cor. 16:13).

Strength and love-we rarely see them put together in that way, but Paul did so appropriately because he was teaching people to walk in Christ's steps. Certainly no one was stronger than Jesus: His strength was so great that he did not sin, unlike everyone else in history. But this strongman was gentle with ordinary people, seeing them as sheep without a shepherd. He was particularly gentle with those outside of Israel, like the Samaritan woman (John 4) and the Syro-Phoenician woman (Mark 7).

Certainly, Jesus was harsh to the ostentatiously religious: "You Pharisees cleanse the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness." Certainly, he knocked those who invented laws beyond those biblically demanded: "You load people with burdens hard to bear, and you yourselves do not touch the burdens with one of your fingers" (Luke 11:39, 46). But his most famous speech, the Sermon on the Mount, is far from Joshua's commanded violence, and far even from the style of violent prophetic speech that we call Jeremiads. Christ was calm rather than clamorous, beckoning rather than beheading.

Christians should walk in Christ's steps and mirror his tone in talking with those heading in the wrong direction. That's the big picture. But having shown that, I'd like to offer not ten commandments but ten thoughts about nuances, starting with one that further explains the Old Testament/New Testament difference.

Nuance 1: The importance of location

The Old Testament is highly location-specific. For example, when God teaches Israelites in the wilderness how they should behave in the Promised Land, He says plainly, "you shall not do as they do in the land of Canaan, to which I am bringing you." He then provides a long list of what the Canaanites do and what His people should not do, and specifies (Lev. 18:26, 28) that "You shall keep my statutes and my rules and do none of these abominations, either the native or the stranger who sojourns among you… lest the land vomit you out when you make it unclean…."

This emphasis on not only pure people but a pure country is frequent in Old Testament passages about life in Israel. Deuteronomy 18:9 is typical: "When you come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not learn to follow the abominable practices of those nations. There shall not be found among you anyone" who does these things. Note well: Israelites should not follow these practices at any time, but the emphasis is on when "you come into the land." The land must be cleansed from defilement. It must be preserved as holy.

Penalties for disobedience in the land were severe, as noted in Leviticus 20: 10,13: "If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death…. If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death…." OBEY, God shouted, so "that the land where I am bringing you to live may not vomit you out" (Lev. 20:22). God established many specific practices for that land: familial property cannot be sold permanently; certain cities of refuge must be established; on it goes.

The prophets were indignant when the Israelites trashed their semi-Eden. God had Jeremiah proclaim, "Thus says the Lord… 'I brought you into a plentiful land to enjoy its fruits and its good things. But when you came in, you defiled me land and made my heritage an abomination" (Jer. 2:7) Jeremiah denounced the betrayal: "The Lord once called you 'a green olive tree, beautiful with good fruit.' But with the roar of a great tempest He will set fire to it, and its branches will be consumed" (Jer. 11:16).

The charter of the ancient Israelites was to protect the purity of the land God had given them. Evangelism was not a priority; when some Israelites married foreign women, leaders from Moses to Ezra did not look upon this as an opportunity to evangelize the newcomers and increase the numbers of Israel, but instead looked upon intermarriage with horror. The Israelites were to purify the Holy Land by killing or driving out the nations that inhabited it and surrounding their land with a theological and cultural fence to keep out others. The prime directive was defense, with the goal maintenance of holiness.

Most Christians understand that Old Testament history teaches all of us not to become full of ourselves and think we can create earthly utopias or even sustain the ones handed to us. But other questions also arise from Israel's experience: If ancient Israel's laws, given by God, did not bring about righteousness in this most likely of environments, how likely are holiness laws to succeed in less favorable environments? And should those who want to be strong and courageous strive to make whatever country they inhabit the semi-Eden that ancient Israel was to be?

Nuance 2: Examing the "New Israel" view

The records of New Haven, Conn. in the 1640s show this decision: "It was ordered that the judicial laws of God, as they were delivered by Moses... be a rule to all the courts in this jurisdiction in their proceedings against offenders." From the Puritans to the present, some Christians who view America as the new Israel have been unwilling to accept unholy activities on what they see as holy ground.

To take one 20th century example, the idea that it was sacrilegious in America to have anti-biblical doctrines taught in government-funded schools was part of the thinking of many Tennessee legislators in the 1920s when they forbad public school teachers to teach "that man has descended from a lower order of animals." John Butler, the legislator who introduced the anti-evolution bill, told reporters, "I am not opposed to teaching of evolution, but I don't think it ought to be taught in state-supported schools." If an anti-biblical doctrine were given governmental backing, this holy land would be profaned.

The debate over the Ten Commandments monument in Alabama also showed the potency of the New Israel view. Former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore wrote in his autobiography So Help Me God that "our country is being led to deny the existence of the Creator God. This turning away from God is known as apostasy and, unfortunately, is nothing new." He then described the situation in ancient Israel, and particularly remarked upon the situation of the southern kingdom, Judah: "Like America today, Judah was a nation that called upon God's name but refused to recognize his sovereignty or abide by his law."

Throughout his Jeremiad, Judge Moore treated America as the new Israel and mourned its departure from biblical ways. His supporters similarly argued that court-ordered removal of the monument was blasphemy: Before the dirty deed, Rev. Greg Dixon of Indiana said, "To remove those commandments would be to replace them with men's commandments that would elevate man to godhood which would replace the divine Godhead, Father, Son and Holy Ghost." Afterward, Covenantnews.com cited chapter five of Deuteronomy, where Moses recites commandments listed in Exodus and then states, "You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and upon your gates." Since "the word 'gates' of Deuteronomy 6:9 refers to public places," Covenantnews.com declared that the monument must be displayed.

That website, like many others, took a question about which Christians can disagree and transformed it into a test of faith. Those who did not back Moore suddenly were heretics. Seeing America as the new Israel, though, was wrong both in principle (biblically, the Church-not any particular nation-is the new Israel) and practice. Practically, the battle for granite gave media a terrific opportunity to further the sense among scoffers that Christianity is primarily about cold do's and don'ts rather than about a warm-hearted relationship with God.

Predictably-biased coverage of monument defenders advanced the media stereotypes of Christians demanding political victory rather than showing forbearance. More people began or continued to see Christianity as a power-seeking faith rather than one emphasizing grace. If the chief Christian goal is the defense of America against the defilement produced by the absence of governmental recognition that God is sovereign, then Judge Moore fought for a noble cause, regardless of the predictability of defeat. But if evangelism is central, then the monument contretemps was for Christians a self-inflicted wound.

Non-Christians now typically believe that Christianity takes away freedom rather than adds to it. Two weeks after Judge Moore's stand hit the headlines I asked students in my University of Texas course on Journalism and Religion to give top-of-the-head, anonymous responses to this question: "How do Christians act?" Here were typical answers: "Fanatical. Cram religion down others' throats. Want to push their religion on others. Trying to force others to do everything their way. Bossing, not helping, others."

Nuance 3: How the "New Israel" view plays out across the country

Judge Moore received national attention, but many localities sport small groups with views similar to his. For example, Michael Marcavage, leader of the Philadelphia-area "Repent America," trumpeted on his website that organization's success in reclaiming at one demonstration a piece of pavement that gay activists had seized: "As soon as we arrived at the protest, I placed my wooden chair in the medium strip facing the protesters. Then, I stood upon the chair and held the Christian flag high. Almost immediately, the crowd across the street turned, surrounded me, and began chanting and taking pictures."

It seems unlikely that they were taking pictures to illustrate a book on effective techniques of evangelism. When I interviewed him last year Marcavage stated that he considered it his duty to reclaim those several square feet for Christ, since America should be a holy land as Israel was. Every October he and several of his supporters march through "OutFest," a gay pride event that sprawls over many city blocks in downtown Philadelphia, carrying signs with statements like "Homosexuality is sin, Christ can set you free," and reciting imprecatory psalms through a bullhorn.

Marcavage now has a long record of arrests for demonstration-related charges such as disorderly conduct, and one year he added felony charges for allegedly trying to start a riot and disobeying the police.

The felony charges were clearly overwrought, and even the liberal Philadelphia Inquirer said so, so it was good and right that the charges eventually were dismissed. But the Inquirer correctly scolded the protestors for refusing to obey police orders to take their bullhorns and signs to the periphery of the demonstration.

Should he let gays have their day in the fall sun without the benefit of Repent America's bullhorn? Many Christians not known for wimping out publicly criticized Marcavage's approach. The Rev. Peter Lillback, pastor of Proclamation Presbyterian Church in Bryn Mawr and a radio evangelist, stated that "drowning people out with a bullhorn is inappropriate." The Rev. Herb Lusk, pastor of Greater Exodus Baptist Church and an ex-NFL tailback who preached regularly to the prostitutes who used to close deals on his doorstep, said biblical opposition to homosexuality "should be preached without apology, [but] that preaching has to be coupled with love and compassion or there's a problem with it."

Bill Devlin of the Urban Family Council and Calvary Chapel called Marcavage's tactics "a classic case of the messenger getting in the way of the message," and that's what is key. Marcavage's work was counter-productive: gays who need Christ, as all of us do, are now more likely to associate Christianity with a bullhorn than with compassion. Marcavage's behavior emerged not from bad manners but bad theology: Identifying America with ancient Israel and himself with Jeremiah, he responded to criticism of his activities by saying "This is what we should expect from the world. They killed all the prophets."

Yes and no: the ancient Israelites regularly killed prophets, but some outside of Israel-such as Jonah and Daniel-survived, through God's grace, and even succeeded: the kings of Assyria and Babylonia both listened to them. One problem with expectations such as Marcavage's is that they can be self-fulfilling prophecies, leading Christians to think they are failures unless others consider them repulsive.

Nuance 4: Living outside Israel in ancient times

The basic Old Testament/New Testament subtracting vs. adding distinction holds, but the division becomes more complex when we examine several Old Testament books that deal with the situation of God's people living outside God's model country. Significantly, Jeremiah-the same Jeremiah whose godly fury led to our word "Jeremiads"-had a very different tone when he spoke to Israelites living not only outside the semi-Eden but in the anti-Eden, Babylonia.

Look at what Jeremiah wrote to Israelites living in the capital of that very ungodly country: "This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: 'Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce…. Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, because in its welfare you will find your welfare'" (Jer. 29:4-7).

Other parts of the Old Testament also indicate that Israelites outside the borders of Israel could have a different political agenda than those inside. Deuteronomy 18:9 banned from ancient Israel "anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens, or a sorcerer or a charmer or a medium or a wizard or a necromancer, for whoever does such things is an abomination to the Lord." And yet the book of Daniel shows how Daniel had to hang out with enchanters, sorcerers, and the other wise men of Babylon. Daniel thought and acted independently, but he nowhere indicated a plan or desire to wipe out these ungodly people. A stranger in a strange land, he had to coexist with them.

The books of Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther show how the Jews of Persia, part of an empire comprising 127 provinces and a vast number of ethnic groups and languages, also lived under laws not their own. The evil that God had said Israel must ban was often just around the corner in Persia, but Israelites showed themselves to be often the most patriotic of subjects: Cupbearer Nehemiah was the last defense against attempts to poison the king, and Mordecai in the book of Esther broke up an assassination plot. When Esther and her uncle Mordecai later had an opportunity to have the king promulgate legislation, they only requested that the Jews of Persia have the right to fight back militarily against their persecutors.

Worth noting is that none of the Israelites' public tolerance of differences indicated a failure to keep God's commands in their own lives and within their own households. In chapter three of the book of Daniel, King Nebuchadnezzar sets up a 90-foot-tall image of gold and commands all his officials to bow down and worship it. Three Israelite refuseniks do not stand on a chair in front of it and harangue the assembled pagans; they merely do not show up. In chapter six, when King Darius orders that for thirty days all prayers must be addressed to him, Daniel prays in his own home, as he always did, until his enemies spy on him and arrest him. Biblical heroes typically did not go looking for trouble. Trouble went looking for them.

Nuance 5: More about location

It might be said that these societies had no tradition of free speech and public demonstration, and so the relevance of the Bible commanding a very hard line in ancient Israel, versus a "Why can't we all got along?" posture elsewhere, is limited. But in New Testament times when greater liberty did exist for Roman citizens in some parts of the empire, the apostle Paul and others emphasized proclaiming the gospel at every opportunity, without calling for the imposition of biblical law.

Gideon in Israel had destroyed an altar of Baal (Judges 6). About 1,000 years later the Maccabees had destroyed Greek altars erected in Israel. Paul, though, did not damage the numerous altars he saw during his walk through Athens. Instead, he reasoned "in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there," and also spoke before the city's philosophical elite (Acts 17). Paul never hesitated to demand his rights as a Roman citizen, but he also never tried to subtract from city streets pagan altars and idols. Proper action in one place was not proper in another.

The bottom line: location, location, location. We even see this in the work of Jesus: He drove the moneychangers out of the Temple, the holiest place in the world, but did not drive them out of other places. Israel had already become a most unholy land by 70 A.D., when Roman soldiers destroyed the Temple, and after that there was no reason to consider one land holier than another, and to institute outside of Israel what was made for Israel.

The early Christian church dropped the defensive posture that had characterized Israel and went on offense. Without a land to preserve but with a gospel to proclaim, the prime directive was evangelism rather than maintenance of purity. New people rapidly joined the church at the risk of dilution, but leaders impelled by the Great Commission of proclaiming the gospel in all nations took risks that Jewish leaders directed to maintain purity were never willing to accept.

Nuance 6: Three types of Biblical law

Now, let's move to America and theological writings essential to the Founding. I've written elsewhere that an alliance of Christian conservatives and libertarians led to the successful prosecution of the Revolutionary War and adoption of the Constitution. If Christian conservatives then had been determined to impose a theonomic structure on the new United States, the result would have been continued disunity. Christians had flexibility, though, because they had grown up on the two theological works that (besides the Bible) were the most influential in colonial America, John Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536-64) and the Westminster Confession of Faith (1644-46).

Some portray Calvin as a theonomist, but he emphasized the lessons of the biblical books I've cited and noted in his blunt fashion (Book IV, Chapter 20, section 14), "There are some who deny that a commonwealth is duly framed which neglects the political system of Moses, and is ruled by the common laws of nations." He called such a view "perilous and seditious… false and foolish," and proposed instead a classic tripartite formulation in his heading for section 15: "Moral, ceremonial, and judicial law distinguished."

The moral law, Calvin wrote, is "contained under two heads, one of which simply commands us to worship God with pure faith and piety; the other, to embrace men with sincere affection. Accordingly, it is the true and eternal rule of righteousness, prescribed for men of all nations and times, who wish to conform their lives to God's will." Or, to translate that into the words of the movie Casablanca, "A kiss is still a kiss… the fundamental things apply, as times goes by." (Christians should be fundamentalists of that sort.)

After toasting the moral law, Calvin roasted the ceremonial law, made up of those sections of the Bible dealing with sacrifices and Temple worship: "The ceremonial law was the tutelage of the Jews, with which it seemed good to the Lord to train this people, as it were, in their childhood, until the fullness of time should come." He quoted Paul's explanation (Galatians 3:23) that, "the law was our guardian until Christ came" - but since then, Christ's sacrifice has rendered all other sacrifices unnecessary and thus disrespectful of God.

The hard question then and now concerned the third kind of law, that known to the ancient Israelites and defined by Calvin as "the judicial law, given to them for civil government." He opposed the idea that the legal code of ancient Israel should be transplanted into different societies: "The statement of some, that the law of God given through Moses is dishonored when it is abrogated and new laws preferred to it, is utterly vain." Legislators should pay attention to "times, place, and nation… For the Lord through the hand of Moses did not give that law to be proclaimed among all nations and to be in force everywhere." In other words, location, location, location.

Since God did give Israel its judicial law, we can learn from the equity of that law-the principles of justice that it embodies. But equity, Calvin emphasized, "cannot but be the same for all…. Constitutions have certain circumstances upon which they in part depend. It therefore does not matter that they are different, provided all equally press toward the same goal of equity… Whatever laws shall be framed to that rule, directed to that goal, bound by that limit, there is no reason why we should disapprove of them, howsoever they may differ from the Jewish law, or among themselves." The stereotype of Calvin has him as doctrinaire and unbending, but in this area and many others he wanted flexibility.

A century later, the Westminster Confession of Faith framed Calvin's argument in a way that proved highly influential in the United States, particularly through the influence of the Presbyterian Church. Westminster noted the Bible's basic ethical principles and continued: "Beside this law, commonly called moral, God was pleased to give to the people of Israel, as a church under age, ceremonial laws, containing several typical ordinances, partly of worship, prefiguring Christ, his graces, actions, sufferings, and benefits; and partly, holding forth divers instructions of moral duties. All which ceremonial laws are now abrogated, under the new testament."

Here's the crucial passage: God also gave Israel "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." Or, as Rev. Ligon Duncan, moderator of the 2004 general assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America (theological successor to the Westminster divines), put it, the judicial code "was given in a unique situation, under temporary circumstances, to a particular people, serving in a special capacity. Thus when the nation-state of Israel expired, its civil code expired with it."

One example that illustrates the meaning of "general equity" concerns the Old Testament law that homeowners put a fence around their roofs. That's because the flat roofs served as sleeping areas and living rooms, especially during hot months, and the goal was to protect life and limb. One equivalent today, when many roofs are pitched and most are not used for parties, is to place fences around swimming pools.

Nuance 7: Defense and offense

Free from having to defend a particular piece of land, and free from having to maintain ceremonial laws or the judicial laws of ancient Israel, what should we still defend and how should we defend it? That is exactly the question the Jerusalem Council of the early New Testament church had to decide when Paul returned to the central city with news that non-Jews were coming to faith in Christ. Church leader James suggested a three-part answer: "abstain from the things polluted by idols, and from sexual immorality, and from what has been strangled and from blood" (Acts 15:20, English Standard Version).

Other apostles and elders agreed with him, and that became the official church policy. The Jerusalem Council sent a letter to Antioch, where Gentiles were becoming Christians, noting that "it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay on you no greater burden than these requirements…. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well." The Council was trying to keep newcomers from thinking that Christianity (or, at that time, their new perspective on Judaism) was primarily about law rather than grace.

But, as we have seen over the centuries, abstaining from sexual immorality is more easily suggested than done. Look at Paul's insistence to the Corinthian Christians, living in one of the Roman Empire's most dissolute cities, that they purify themselves "from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God." (II Cor. 7:1). He similarly told the Ephesians that they "must no longer live as the Gentiles" who "indulge in every kind of impurity, with a continual lust for more" (Eph. 4:17-19).

Churches, wherever their locations, were and are to be the new holy lands. During Christianity's early history that emphasis seemed to have an impact: In the second century Aristides wrote that Christians "walk in all humility and kindness, and falsehood is not found among them, and they love one another. They despise not the widow and grieve not the orphan." Justin Martyr wrote, "Those who once delighted in fornication now embrace chastity alone." Both Aristides and Justin Martyr were promoting Christianity, but critics also took notice. Tertullian, for example, was impressed by "how they love one another and are ready to die for each other."

As Christianity spread believers lived in many lands, yet proper conduct among them did not change from one place to another: in every country, husbands and wives were to be faithful to each other out of faithfulness to God, not out of governmental coercion. Christianity has almost always stressed the centrality of the heart, the desire of the individual to follow Christ through God's grace and not external pressure. Once a culture has to resort to blue laws to enforce Sabbath rest, the battle is already largely lost. Obedience has to be volitional or it will not last, and rules enacted to enforce obedience typically provoke resentment.

Today, while many Christians work hard to promulgate laws designed to improve societal morality, many churches are far from being holy lands. Pollster George Barna has compared the total U.S. population with the 35-43% of Americans who call themselves "born-again" and the 7-8% of the population who are theologically orthodox evangelicals. He found divorce rates about the same, with most of the divorces among born-agains coming after they accepted Christ.

Ron Sider provides a story about one church that is all too common: "a man and a woman from two different married couples had an affair, divorced their spouses, married each other, and assumed they could continue in good standing in the congregation in spite of their defiance of Jesus's teaching and the destruction of two families. Not even in this blatant case of stark disobedience could this evangelical congregation muster the courage to exercise church discipline."

And yet, all is not lost. One recent survey showed that even though only 9% of evangelicals tithe, they do give away twice as much money as the average American, and a third more than mainline church members - 4% of income rather than 2% or 3%.

Massive improvements are elusive but small changes are evident. A government-funded study of 12,000 adolescents with some church connection showed that 88% of those who had taken a "True Love Waits" pledge not to have sexual relations before marriage had broken the pledge at some point over a six-year period. Nevertheless, girls who took the pledge delayed their age for first having sex from 16.7 years to 19.9 years. Principal investigator Peter Bearman, the chair of Columbia University's sociology department, concluded that "the delay effect is substantial and almost impossible to erase. Taking a pledge delays intercourse for a long time."

Correlations between church involvement and resistance to wrongful activity are particularly strong in inner city areas, where the difference between the churched and unchurched in everything from arrests to crisis pregnancies has been well-researched both statistically and anecdotally. Given sin within and lures without, churches will never become pure holy lands for the same reason the original Holy Land was unsuccessful. And yet, churches can certainly do more and show more, not by setting up new rules but by affecting hearts through preaching, teaching, worship, and the practice of compassion.

Nuance 8: Adding, not subtracting, in Ten Commandments cases

As noted earlier, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, out of his Christian and constitutional understanding, developed an approach to Ten Commandments monuments far different than that of Judge Moore in Alabama. When Abbott appeared a year ago before the U.S. Supreme Court to present his oral defense of the six-foot-tall red granite monolith located about 75 feet from the state Capitol building in Austin, he did so in a way deliberately designed not to enrage Supreme Court secularists.

Abbott noted that the Fraternal Order of Eagles donated the monument in 1961 and that lawmakers accepted it "to commend the Eagles for their efforts in fighting juvenile delinquency-a constitutionally secular reason in the court's eyes." He argued that "the Ten Commandments are undoubtedly a sacred religious text, but they are also a foundational document in the development of Western legal codes and culture." He also pointed out that hanging inside the Texas Capitol building is the seal of the Republic of Mexico, which "contains an eagle holding a serpent in its mouth, perched on a cactus that grows from a rock surrounded by water. A representation of Aztec mythology, this religious display is neither Jewish nor Christian, but is an acknowledgment of the historical and cultural contributions made by people of differing faiths."

This is important: Abbott was saying that both the Aztec symbol and the Ten Commandments monument should remain. Here was a Christian saying that Christians can live in a land filled with anti-Christian emblems without being forced theologically to attempt to eliminate them. Here was a Christian saying that a Christian monument could be one among many monuments -- and the Supreme Court, after ducking Ten Commandments cases for 25 years and refusing to hear Judge Moore's appeal, listened to Abbott (who already had a favorable decision from the 5th Circuit) and ruled in his favor.

Moore vigorously attacked Abbott as essentially a sub-Christian traitor whose case "den[ied] the sovereignty of God while my case was predicated upon that acknowledgement." Abbott, Moore said, displayed "hypocrisy and lack of faith" by "trying to justify a display of God's law as only secular in nature and in no way representative of the true God." Moore contended that the Supreme Court's 5-4 willingness to let the Texas monument remains was "a devastating loss for America," since to win the case on the grounds of the Commandment's historical significance was to deny their religious significance.

This is a theological debate. If America is the new Israel, Moore is right. If America is a land of religious diversity, Moore is wrong, and Abbott's defense of the Texas monument as a tool for teaching history can be expanded. On the same day that the Supreme Court allowed the Texas monument it upheld the 6th Circuit Court's order that framed copies of the Commandments be removed from the walls of two Kentucky county courthouses and a public school, since the decalogues were placed there with obvious religious intent. And yet, that 6th Circuit ruling suggests an opportunity to add rather than to subtract.

In his ruling Judge Eric Clay wrote that merely posting the Ten Commandments fulfilled no "educational function," but he also opined that the outcome of the case may have been different had the Ten Commandments been "integrated into the school curriculum." The judge alluded to previous U.S. Supreme Court musings that the Ten Commandments have a place "in an appropriate study of history, civilization, ethics...." He suggested that the court could look favorably on a display if the Ten Commandments were incorporated into a comparative religion course or a course on how the Founders' religious beliefs affected late 18th-century history and the structure of the U.S. government.

The U.S. Supreme Court did not take a position on such speculation, but Christians should. Wouldn't it make sense for Ten Commandments proponents to work harder on day-in, day-out teaching rather than on merely putting up a display? Why not stipulate that, as part of their "core knowledge" all children should know the Ten Commandments as well as the central points of the Magna Carta and the Declaration of Independence, just as they should know where the fifty states are located? Why not place in school lobbies memory aids, such as Ten Commandments displays and maps of the United States, that support classroom teaching?

Courts might balk at that, but the debate then would be about teaching minds rather than about symbolically claiming a piece of ground or a building. Christians would be on the side of adding substance to the curriculum, and letting principals and teachers figure out how to fit it in, rather than lobbying to subtract ("censor") what they don't like. Similarly, when the University of North Carolina assigned portions of the Quran as part of freshman orientation, Christians should not have objected to that but pushed for the inclusion of parts of the Bible as well.

Nuance 9: The debate concerning same-sex marriage

Addition, not subtraction, has its limits: Christians cannot happily add same-sex marriage to our culture for the same reason we cannot smile on abortion, but on this issue as well we need to explain that same-sex marriage is really not an extension of liberty, although it may seem that way in the short run. Seana Segrue, in a paper presented at a December, 2003, Witherspoon conference, pointed out that the same-sex marriage movement is a subset of a sexual revolution based in liberty, but liberty "achieved through the empowerment of a state with the strength to destroy sexual norms, and hence the institution of marriage as the foundation of the family wherein children are primarily socialized and learn to be self-governing."

She noted that "lacking roots in biology, in tradition, in a sense of duty, same-sex marriage is not sufficiently resilient to fend off the vicissitudes which the ordinary and extraordinary demands of life place upon all of us. Being entirely a creation of the state, it is an institution that needs to be coddled, and which demands cocooning to protect it…. It is desperately in need of state intervention to support it… The need of same-sex unions to be culturally coddled also increases the likelihood that the state will use public education for this end." We are already seeing that to be the case: students need to be reeducated to see as normal what almost all instinctively recognize as weird.

Same-sex marriage can be made to seem normal only if we subtract both educational freedom and religious liberty. Professor Segrue again: "The state necessarily stands in opposition to religious institutions that refuse to recognize same-sex marriage, and this opposition is heightened by the fact that same-sex marriage is in need of a protective culture to be sustainable." The new imperative "indicts religious institutions that stand in opposition to same-sex marriage as intolerant. Through this charge, the moral authority of religious institutions is undermined in the eyes of the public who are encouraged to view uncompromising faiths as unreasonable and unsupportive of marriage," as it has been redefined.

This redlining of religious institutions has a further effect: "Parents, raising children in a society in which religion is widely regarded as inconsistent with official public policy, are less apt to expose their children to it. Parents thereby choose to deprive themselves of a fundamental support for their own marriages." If the state then declares opposition to homosexuality a form of "hate speech," churches will have to decide whether to remain true to the tenets of their faith or, as in the official church system of China, sue for peace with a government that is happy to indulge churches as long as they undergo an extreme makeover.

We could speculate as well about other consequences, but here's the essence: "The right to do whatever one wants to do can only exist in a society that removes all impediments and tidies up the social dislocations and inconveniences created by the sexual indulgence of its members." What looks like addition in the short run ends up as subtraction, because same-sex marriage goes so much against human nature that a backlash will inevitably occur - and then the state will have to squash that backlash to preserve the status of a favored group.

I want to stress that same-sex marriage must be opposed, but in a way that treats homosexuals as still possessing human dignity. Biblically, any posture that implies, "I'm righteous and you're not," or suggests that homosexuality is the worst of all problems, displays an inadequate view of sin. In January, 2006, a positive movie about missionaries, End of the Spear, hit movie theaters, but a few Christians demanded that the movie be boycotted because it turned out that an actor who played one of the missionaries is a homosexual. That campaign was sad in its assault on a powerful movie with strong biblical content, but also inconsistent unless the boycotters also attacked movies with actors who are heterosexual adulterers.

Nuance 10. We, the neighbors

Expansive, non-defensive Christianity has been the outstanding vehicle in human history for increasing the liberty of those seen as sub-human until Christians began viewing them as neighbors: women, the poor, the sick, racial and ethnic minorities, and now the not-yet-born. Certainly, some Christians defended slavery and discrimination, but they were doing what was common in much of the world: The sensational news was that a critical mass of Christians fought for what was uncommon. The evangelistic desire to add rather than subtract was essential, for a willingness to take risks led to "We, the people" including more and more people.

The big 19th century experiment was whether the "we" could include different religions. President George Washington had signaled a coming expansion in 1789 when he wrote to one synagogue, "May the children of the stock of Abraham who dwell in this land continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other inhabitants, while everyone shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree and there shall be none to make him afraid." In 1800, though, the U.S. was still an almost entirely Protestant country. Then, millions of Catholic immigrants arrived from Ireland, Italy, Poland and other countries. Later in the century, millions of Jews arrived from eastern Europe.

Some ugly nativist groups sprung up, of course, and some Christians sadly joined them, for some Protestants who thought of their country as a holy land fought what they saw as pollution by millions of immigrants with non-Protestant faiths. Nevertheless, by the end of the century the consensus was clear: We the neighbors include Catholics and Jews, and soon there was a smattering of Buddhists, Hindus, and Muslims as well.

The big 20th century experiment was whether the "we" could include different racial and ethnic groups. The Civil War hadn't settled that, since African-Americans largely moved from slavery to share-cropping, which did not leave many any better off. In the mid-20th century, though, strong and courageous Christians (once again, sadly, with exceptions) fought for civil rights as many of their predecessors had fought for emancipation. In India Hindu priests lead the opposition to equal rights for the dark-skinned Dalits ("untouchables"), but in the United States ministers like Martin Luther King and others of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference demanded to be treated as neighbors.

That drive for addition was successful, but others have not been. Many by inaction or misguided action subtracted the poor from the list of neighbors, but compassionate conservatives in recent years have insisted on treating the poor as part of the "we" who are capable of working, marrying, and building families. Compassionate conservatism is the modern manifestation of biblical compassion. Christians have also insisted that unborn children are also part of the "we," despite the Supreme Court's attempt in Roe v. Wade to exclude them.

Christians defend human life on biblical grounds but also on the common ground that can be developed with nonbelievers: The unborn and the newborn are part of "We, the people." One woman who had an abortion wrote of how "there just wasn't room" in her life for the child growing within her, so she aborted her child and realized later that she could have made room. She wrote, "I have this ghost now. A very little ghost that only appears when I'm seeing something beautiful, like the full moon on the ocean last weekend. And the baby waves at me. And I wave at the baby."

Addition can lift us onto high moral ground. Subtraction yields ghosts. Christians can be strong and courageous by bringing faith to the marketplace and governmental halls and into homes and offices, by looking for salty opportunities to debate rather than debase opponents, and by emphasizing the opportunities to add rather than subtract.

As churches become models they can move onto offense with great flexibility, keeping in mind a frequent biblical metaphor: Christians as salt. It's an apt usage not only because salt is both a preservative and a flavoring, but because the two elements that make up salt - NaCl, sodium and chlorine - are both poisonous when ingested by themselves. The key teaching of Christianity is that God saves sinners. A holy God saves sinful man through His merciful action, so Christians should try to communicate both God's holiness and His mercy, remembering that holiness without love is acidic, and love without holiness is cloyingly over-sweet.

Salty activists do not overdose on just one of the elements. For example, a Christian demonstration outside an abortion business should declare both that abortion is wrong and that God is merciful to aborters and abortionists who come to faith in Him. Protesters who seem hateful to troubled women because they appear to offer condemnation rather than hope are not helping the cause of Christ. The type of strength and courage most needed today is evident at the front lines of poverty-fighting and pro-life work throughout the world. For example, Jim and Terry Cooney in Maryland have adopted numerous children with a variety of physical and mental difficulties, and have loved them all.

Conclusion

Because Joshua in the Bible showed one type of strength and courage as he led his troops into hostile territory, some Christians today think in military terms as well, but they need to ask themselves whether they are following Christ or enjoying the adrenaline rush that rage produces. Rage, like alcohol, can make us feel stronger, more courageous, and more powerful, but James and other New Testament writers noted that the wrath of man does not accomplish the righteousness of God. Paul had it right in his much-quoted verse: "If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal" (I Cor. 13).

Corinthian Christians, living in an ungodly port city, could have gone 24/7 protesting the decadence around them, but Paul pleaded with them to show love, which he defined as "not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful…. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways."

Christians need to give up both childish tactics of the kind Paul redlines and childish strategies that sometimes bring pet issues to the forefront. Some issues - religious liberty, marriage, life - are essential ones, but others are discretionary and require prudential judgment. For ease of memory we can even set up an ABC of how to decide which discretionary issues to emphasize:

ASSESS accurately both past and present. Western civilization is founded on both Jerusalem and Athens, biblical and classical knowledge, and just as it's not accurate for liberal professors to ignore the Bible, so it's not accurate for conservative Christians to say that non-biblical strains were unimportant in the formation of Western civilization or America itself. Christianity was crucial in the founding of the United States, but some deists and skeptics also were part of the revolutionary coalition - and that means we should not look upon America as holy land lost and strive to return to the early days. Each era has sin sufficient unto itself.

BUILD consensus among conservative Christians. The Calvinist concept that "lesser magistrates" can sometimes rebel against a tyrannical government -in the American context, local and state officials standing up against federal over-reaching-is a mighty one, but "magistrates" is plural, not singular. Individual rebellion can be quirky, so the requirement that many magistrates agree on the need for change makes sure that the grievances are great. Our key political opponents are secular liberals, not other conservatives, and rhetoric that divides us helps our adversaries to conquer.

CHOOSE battles and tactics carefully. Sometimes we have no choice of battleground; if we are ordered to stop praying to God or to bow to idols, we must stand firm wherever we are, as did Daniel and his friends in ancient Babylon. But when we do have a choice, we need to emphasize Acts 15:20 questions such as abortion and marriage. If we lose we lose, but we should try to win, not rush toward martyrdom when other God-honoring options exist; otherwise, it's not martyrdom, it's suicide.

If we follow those ABCs, we won't adopt the terrible tactic of spam recruitment: making statements that excite one listener but turn off a thousand. Those who with a defeatist mentality assume that minds cannot change, so the only goal is to propel into action those already in your camp, are like spam e-mailers: They don't care how many get irritated as long as a sale is made. That hurts not only Christian social and political activity but evangelism as well, and underestimates God's ability to change hearts.

To return to the overall conference theme: Christians should not tear apart the Reagan coalition of libertarians and conservative Christians nor abandon the goal of advancing both liberty and virtue. If we understand the need to assess, build, and choose, we also won't send eviction notices to those who do not agree with all our ideas. God wanted Gideon's army to be small, but that was based on special revelation. Today, efforts designed to create a tiny hard core by slamming others owe more to Lenin than to the Bible. We must still hang together so that we don't hang separately.

[Published by ISI Books as part of A SYMPOSIUM IN HONOR OF RONALD REAGAN: THE FUTURE OF AMERICAN CONSERVATISM (FEB., 2006)]