Wolfe On Conversions’ Impact On Political Life…. McAtee On Wolfe

It’s hard to believe that Wolfe is so erroneous on this.

This is an attempt by Wolfe to, once again, belittle Worldview as a concept. On the way to that end Wolfe also belies a profound misunderstanding of conversion. Wolfe’s statement above might be true if conversion was equal to instantaneous growth in sanctification so that the new convert instantly owns the mind of Christ in its full maturity. However, theologians know (and Wolfe has repeatedly admitted that he is no theologian) that conversion does not translate into instantaneous full bloom sanctification. The converted man still has miles to go in thinking God’s thoughts after Him. The converted person throughout his life will, by God’s grace, grow into an ever more complete and fulsome Christian World and Life view.

First, here we would note that if true conversion doesn’t change hearts & worldviews thus performing a homogenizing work on political opinion, then conversion means nothing. If there is no homogenizing work at all in conversion so that the regenerate begins to think in all areas of life in a way incrementally and ever increasingly more consistent with the Christian World life view then no conversion has taken place. Politics continues after conversion among a Christian people group because the rate of sanctification among Christians living in a Christian people group is going to be uneven, and as it will be uneven therefore politics, contra Wolfe, has not ended.

What Wolfe misses here, in his attempt to belittle Worldview thinking (and conversion for that matter) is that political life remains after multiple conversions in a nation due to the matter of the ongoing necessary work of sanctification. Because the mind isn’t instantly sanctified political life remains after Reformation in a given land among a set particular people because the rate of the effect of sanctification is uneven among any people or people group.

As Dr. Wolfe admits that he is no theologian, I suppose it might be somewhat understandable that he gets this so wrong. Maybe he should leave proper thinking on politics to theologians like me?

Actually, this is a prime example of how theology cannot be separated from politics, in the way that Wolfe advocates. Because theology remains the Queen of the Sciences and so the driving force for politics, as well as all other disciplines, well trained theologians remain essential in order to do political theory aright. It is promissory of the most disastrous results to try and divorce politics from theology as if politics is an entirely different something (category) as from theology.

If politics as a discipline is defined as the art or science of governing a body politic then the art or science of governing well has to have a standard by which it can be adjudicated if a good politics is being pursued. That standard can good politics can only be determined upon a theological basis as God’s Word as well as Nature, as interpreted through the prism of God’s Word, is consulted. Even in politics Scripture is the norm that norms all norms.

Score a “swing and a miss” for Wolfe on this one. Theology would have helped him avoid this whiff.

Postscript: I am a little snarky when it comes to these subjects when dealing with Dr. Wolfe because he is forever seeking to stomp out Worldview thinking in favor of his woe-begotten Thomism.