“So much of what passes for “Christian influence” today sounds more like Christian control. We hear calls to “take back the culture,” “reclaim America for Christ,” and “restore Christian values.” But the kingdom of God doesn’t come by seizing cultural control. It doesn’t advance by force or fear. It spreads through weakness, confession, forgiveness, and love. “Christian nationalism” turns the Christian’s calling to serve into a crusade to conquer. It assumes that the kingdom of God is something we build, when the gospel says it’s something we receive. Grace frees us from the burden of “taking back” anything. The world doesn’t need our dominance — it needs our service. The gospel doesn’t build empires — it resurrects sinners.”
📷Tullian Tchividjian
Previous advocate for Anti-nomianism
Now Advocate for Anabaptist theology
1.) There is no such thing as neutrality. Either the Christian faith is in control or a Christ hating faith is in control. Hence Christian control when it is indeed Christian is a reality to be pursued and delighted in.
2.) Tullian is advancing the idea that we seize cultural control by not seizing cultural control. Tullian argues that the Kingdom will indeed be received and so come but it is only to come and be received “through weakness, confession, forgiveness, and love.” Tullian doesn’t have a problem with the Kingdom of Christ coming. His only insistence is that the Kingdom of Christ come as Christians pursue cultural defeat and surrender. So, Tullian wants Christian dominance as much as the person he is complaining about but only in his way — the way of defeat and surrender.
3.) Tullian is seeking to advance his view of cultural control by seeking to shame Christians who disagree with him. That’s not very forgiving or loving or a matter of weakness on Tullian’s part. If Tullian really wanted to be weak he would just shut up on this matter and go into his prayer closet and just pray for his view of the Kingdom to come to pass and so quite lecturing other people because in his lecturing of other people there is a lack of weakness on his part.
4.) Notice that Tullian is seeking to advance his version of the Kingdom by means of fear. The fear that Tullian is trying to stoke is the fear of being displeasing to God if we advocate for the Lord Jesus Christ who is King be owned as King. Tullian would have it that Christ is only going to owned as King when His people do not insist that Christ be owned as King. Per Tullian, only by living as if Christ is not King can the Kingdom be received.
5.) Notice the glaring false dichotomy from Tullian here;
“‘Christian nationalism’ turns the Christian’s calling to serve into a crusade to conquer.”
Who says that a crusade to conquer can not be a matter of service? When cultures are conquered for Christ those who are in bondage to crimes such as sex trafficking, abortion, sodomy, etc. are no longer living in the context where such things are allowed. They may not yet be redeemed individually, but they are no longer living in a culture that is contrary to God’s expressed law-order. Is not the change that would come by Christians conquering be a service to those who would otherwise be plowed under and destroyed by such illegal legalities that exist in anti-Christ cultures?
In brief, there is nothing inherently sinful in conquering and conquering can be done as a means of service. Tullian is involved in a false dichotomy here. It would be a good thing for Talmudic or Mooselimb cultures to be conquered. It would be a matter of service to the people in those cultures if Christ who is King were to be owned as King.
6.) Tullian has another false dichotomy when he puts receiving the Kingdom in conflict with building the Kingdom. Because all is of Grace it is simply the case that when building the Kingdom we are also receiving the Kingdom. If I build a house as a Christian I understand that God is the one who has given me all the resources to that end and so it can be said at one and the same time that as I build my house I am receiving my house. Tullian’s reasoning here is of a nature that we should not plant a vegetable garden to get vegetables because God will provide vegetables, or similarly, we should not seek to build a family by the normal means of having children because God will provide children. In the same way Tullian is saying we should not seek to build God’s Kingdom because we are going to receive God’s Kingdom. Tullian is operating from a completely pietistic/retreatist worldview where man doesn’t work out what God works in.
7.) Tullian gives us another gem with;
“Grace frees us from the burden of “taking back” anything.
Really? Grace frees us from the burden of “taking back” family relationships that were destroyed because of a previous absence of grace? Grace frees us from “taking back” the harm that was inflicted in our business relationship with consumers because of a previous absence of grace? Grace frees us to be obedient and being obedient means that we take back those matters (for God’s glory) that were so injured by the absence of grace. That sentence from Tullian is just really pietistic bloviating. It sounds good but it really has little meaning.
8.) As mentioned earlier, Christian dominance when it is Christian is a service that the world desperately needs. What the world or the church doesn’t need is the kind of Christian dominance by surrender that Tullian is pushing.
9.) Tullian ends with another false dichotomy;
“The gospel doesn’t build empires — it resurrects sinners.”
These two realities are not mutually exclusive. In point of fact the Gospel as it resurrects sinners does build nations. The two go hand in glove. Where the Gospel resurrects sinners the effect is going to be that those resurrected sinners are going to in turn, in obedience to Christ desire to live in social orders that are pleasing to Christ and His authority.
So, while the Gospel may not build empires, it certainly does build nations and social orders where the Gospel and the whole of Christianity is honored.
10.) In the end this is a debate about two very different visions of Christianity. I would insist that Tullian is dishonoring Jesus by not taking Christ’s office of King seriously. Indeed, I would say Tullian completely dismisses the idea of Christ as “Lord.” For Tullian Christ’s Lordship is a Gnostic kind of reality. It is the same kind of Kingship that one finds in R2K thinking. It is the kind of Kingship that says “Jesus is King in a non Kingly way.”
You should challenge him to a public recorded debate. I bet he would refuse.
“Who says that a crusade to conquer can not be a matter of service?”
Sad to say, but thanks to medieval papacy the very word “crusade” stinks in the nostrils of many devout and well-meaning Protestants. We would need to find another, better word to describe righteous Christian militancy than “crusade,” which is used too much by larpish theobros on the Internet who want to show off their manliness, which can be a bit vainglorious.
Of course I don’t buy the modern narrative that the Crusades were uniformly evil. I do agree that the word “Crusade” does stink in the nostrils of many devout and well-meaning Protestants who don’t know their Christian history. If they would read a few volumes by Thomas Madden they would be educated on the matter, but alas they won’t do that.
War is always unseemly but that doesn’t mean that war is always unnecessary.
I know you know that. I write that for others who might be reading along.
He must have skipped over Psalm 144:1. “Blessed be the Lord my strength which teacheth my hands to war, and my fingers to fight:” It was a favorite of Gen. R.E. Lee.