“We don’t want anybody to convert at the point of a spear or the edge of a sword.”
Doug Wilson
Interview w/ Chrissy Gordon
1.) It is not possible to convert anybody at the point of a spear or the edge of a sword.
2.) It is however possible to convert people to cultural Christianity at the point of a spear or the edge of a sword and has been done many times in history. Charlamagne, for example, converted the Saxons that way. Over the course of time subsequent to this forced conversion to cultural Christianity many Saxons were genuinely converted to a genuine Christian faith. This kind of “conversion” should be pursued in a setting where Christianity is being challenged by false gods in a cultural setting.
The Aztecs likewise were “converted” in this matter by Hernán Cortés. It would not have been a felicitous virtue to practice sensitivity to Aztec feelings to allow Aztec culture to continue. Forced conversion to an outward cultural expression of Christianity was a positive good and God was pleased with those types of conversions to cultural Christianity.
God would be pleased today if, for example, Abortionists, Sodomites and Trannies were forced to convert to a cultural Christianity that they hate. God would be please today if, for example, the producers of kiddie porn and those who sex traffic children and women were forced to convert to cultural Christianity even it that was done at the point of a spear or the edge of a sword. God was pleased when the Donatists were forced back into the church.
There is nothing ignoble or un-Christian in the least in this historical practice.
3.) God is pleased with ruling in the midst of His enemies. God is pleased when the wicked are forced to bow the knee. God is pleased when the wicked are forced, even as despising, to practice an outward form of righteousness that they do not agree with internally.
4.) We are at the point in the West where one religion or another is going to achieve final hegemony. Whichever religion which will win out will be a religion that eventually forces the other side to convert to their religion either at the point of the spear or the edge of the sword. So, the question is only whether or not we will be holding the spear and forcing the outward conversions to a admittedly cultural Christianity or whether we, as Christians, will on the wrong side of the spear and sword having to choose between our own outward conversion to a false religion or death. Christians will either use force or they will have force used against them.
There is nothing unrighteous in following the example of Charlemagne or Hernán Cortés or the little council in Geneva in their decision regarding Severtus for that matter.
And yet, this is not a subject that Christian Theonomists should drive too hard, because it CAN lead to some rather unsavoury results, when stubborn unbelievers are driven to outwardly profess the faith they inwardly despise. The Marrano Jews are a notorious example. (Karl Marx might qualify as a Marrano in some sense, as his father had his family baptized as Lutherans when he was a small boy.)
I actually think that Christians might take a lesson from the Muslims on this topic (instead of following the medieval Popish system), and instead of literal forced conversion, they could force the infidels to live in the humiliating and inferior state of DHIMMITUDE. That is, they are allowed to exist, but it shall be made abundantly clear to them that they are second-class citizens, or rather, not real citizens at all but “resident aliens” who are outside of the Christian commonwealth.
The Whig historian T.B. Macaulay could gloat at how outward conformity in Puritan England did not lead to spiritual triumphs:
https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/1468/pg1468-images.html#link2HCH0002
“The most rigid discipline that can be enforced within a religious society is a very feeble instrument of purification, when compared with a little sharp persecution from without. We may be certain that very few persons, not seriously impressed by religious convictions, applied for baptism while Diocletian was vexing the Church, or joined themselves to Protestant congregations at the risk of being burned by Bonner. But, when a sect becomes powerful, when its favour is the road to riches and dignities, worldly and ambitious men crowd into it, talk its language, conform strictly to its ritual, mimic its peculiarities, and frequently go beyond its honest members in all the outward indications of zeal. No discernment, no watchfulness, on the part of ecclesiastical rulers, can prevent the intrusion of such false brethren. The tares and wheat must grow together. Soon the world begins to find out that the godly are not better than other men, and argues, with some justice, that, if not better, they must be much worse. In no long time all those signs which were formerly regarded as characteristic of a saint are regarded as characteristic of a knave.
Thus it was with the English Nonconformists. They had been oppressed; and oppression had kept them a pure body. They then became supreme in the state. No man could hope to rise to eminence and command but by their favour. Their favour was to be gained only by exchanging with them the signs and passwords of spiritual fraternity. One of the first resolutions adopted by Barebone’s Parliament, the most intensely Puritanical of all our political assemblies, was that no person should be admitted into the public service till the House should be satisfied of his real godliness. What were then considered as the signs of real godliness, the sadcoloured dress, the sour look, the straight hair, the nasal whine, the speech interspersed with quaint texts, the Sunday, gloomy as a Pharisaical Sabbath, were easily imitated by men to whom all religions were the same. The sincere Puritans soon found themselves lost in a multitude, not merely of men of the world, but of the very worst sort of men of the world. For the most notorious libertine who had fought under the royal standard might justly be thought virtuous when compared with some of those who, while they talked about sweet experiences and comfortable scriptures, lived in the constant practice of fraud, rapacity, and secret debauchery.”
They might not convert but they will comply.
Any parent knows when they see the defiant “I’m sitting down on the outside but I’m standing up on the inside” spirit in a child. Do they cease from requiring outward compliance because of this? Certainly not.
Christ rules His Church by the sword of the Spirit but He rules the nations with a “rod of iron”.
This isn’t complicated. Doug is clearly confusing the “first use” and “second use” of the Law here. Why?