What Makes a Law Just and a Nation Righteous

David takes today’s episode to develop a historical context for next week’s discussion of neo-Baptist engagement with law and politics. Without this context, the Gnostic nature of that form of engagement will be less clear. David uses the work of 18th-century Scottish theologian, Thomas Boston, and…

The Neo-Covenanters: Who They Are and Why Their View of Law and Politics is Gnostic

Are you part of the neo-Covenantal tradition or the neo-Baptist tradition when it comes to law and politics? Today, David defines these two groups based on 30 years of dealing with Christians in the legal and policy spheres. In this episode, though, he explains why the neo-Covenanters are Gnostics …

What a Gnostic Benthamite Christian Lawyer Looks Like: Me.

David begins his examination of what he considers the two predominate views among Christians on law and politics, those he calls the neo-Covenanters and neo-Baptists, with how he realized he read the Bible like the legal positivist, Jeremy Bentham, and why reading the Bible that way is gnostic, not…

The Law of Nature Jeremy Bentham and I Overlooked

Common law authority William Blackstone said that man “must in all points conform to the will of his nature,” and this will was called the “natural law.” Today, David explains how he overlooked the most fundamental law of human nature because he read the Bible like a disciple of legal positivist Je…

The Pursuit of Righteous Laws and the Presidential Election

Evangelicals of all stripes want to live in a country that has righteous laws or, we might say, law in accord with God’s law. And to that end the debate rages among those voting for Trump because they are evangelicals and those not voting for Harris because they are evangelical. The recent comments…

Have Christian Legal and Policy Advocates “Kept God’s Law”?

This week David shares four statements by Jonathan Burnside, Professor of Biblical Law at the University of Bristol (England) Law School, about how the Bible presents “Biblical law” that came flooding back to his mind when, last week, he read a conversation God said Jeremiah would have with those o…

What Do Concerns About Electoral and Legislative Outcomes Say About Us?

At a recent gathering of political and legal advocates from around the nation, most of whom were Christians, these questions were asked: “What keeps you up at night?” and “What is most urgent to you?” David uses an excerpt from C.S. Lewis’s The Weight of Glory, an excerpt from John Owen’s Christolo…

Can Dionysius and Christians Both Sit at the Republican Party’s Table?

This week’s episode will spring from the relationship between Dionysius’s table depicted at the Olympics and common Christian wisdom about political engagement. David will apply thoughts drawn from observations made by Abraham Kuyper, John Owen, Jeff Shafer, Jason Farley, and the prophet Jeremiah t…

What Political Alternatives Do Christian Have?

After the events of the last 10 days, some Christian policy organizations are circling back to how Christians should respond to the new Republican Party Platform. Today, David uses Isaiah and John Owen to probe whether observations made by one prominent national organization go deeply enough in exp…

Examining the Pagan Predicates of the New Republican Party Platform

Changes in the Republican Party’s platform’s planks regarding abortion and marriage riled Christian political advocates who actively sought a minority report with different language. But did they read the Preamble? Today, David explains why he thinks its provisions represent the best of humanistic …