I have been thinking about recent public remarks on winning by a Senior Fellow for Biblical Worldview at a national Christian organization. It is focused on law and public policy. He said Christians needed to win in the U.S. Supreme Court on the unconstitutionality of state bans on “conversion therapy.” It sounds good. But the prophet Isaiah helped me realize that today’s approach to winning has a lot of Christian spitting into the wind.
I previously wrote that the SBC and PCA were spitting in the wind with their respective resolutions touching on human sexuality. But this former colleague’s comments (former because I officially retired last December) about the need to win really troubled me.
He posted on Facebook that it was inconsistent for liberals to support medical interventions to “treat” gender dysphoria but disallow conversion therapy as a form of treatment.
I commented that their position was consistent. If gender theory is the truth about what it means to be human, then medical interventions are needed. And it would be inconsistent for a state that believes gender theory is true to have state-licensed counselors telling people it is not true, and that they should not pursue medical treatment.
I said Christian legal and policy advocates needed to begin arguing from the principle that there is a truth about human beings that objectively grounds what is good mental health care counseling. As I’ve written here previously, I believe Christian lawyers conceding that there is no truth by which mental health care can be judged will prove harmful in the long run.
He replied that this is “not an argument that will win today.” Moreover, he added “that if we insisted on winning with that argument only, we’d continue losing.” It should be noted Christian legal and public policy advocates don’t make that argument; they rely strictly on the empirical sciences as a guide to public decision making.
It may not have occurred to this worldview influencer that Christians may have been losing because they have not discipled the nation well on what image of God is. Perhaps, we’ve not explained its significance for society in general and to law in particular. Now, it seems we want SCOTUS to protect us from that failure.
It also may not have occurred to him that we may be losing because Christian legal and policy advocates have not made an argument asserting a givenness to human nature and meaning for decades, maybe a century.
But I think the problem is deeper than either of those reasons. Isaiah exposed it for me.
A Christian view of law takes into consideration the context in which God places law, i.e., His covenant. As I have written elsewhere, the “secret” to God’s progressively articulated covenants with man (from Adam through the one mediated by Moses) is a covenant never taught to me in a church. It is the one between God the Father and God the Son.
This pre-creation covenant was was “formed” in eternity and not in the course of time. It is for the redemption of man and, more generally, is for “the times of the restoration of all things” (Acts 3:21 (emphasis supplied). More on that later.
With that as background, Isaiah gives us a great visual image of how the world works— covenantally in time from creation through the consummating restoration. I believe this is what we must use to evaluate winning.
In the 55th chapter of Isaiah, verse 8, the prophet provides an overarching principle on the subject (and all subjects). “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD.” In other words, our thoughts about what winning is and the way to win might not be the same as His.
He then offers two ways in which this principle is true, but I will focus on the second. It begins in verse 10 with a prepositional statement about how rain and snow work.
For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater.
This is not just a statement of scientific fact. It is a cosmological statement about the integrated way in which a fully integrated cosmos works. And we must give it careful attention because verse 11 starts with “So.”
So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it. (emphasis supplied)
The approach to winning by my former colleague, and he is not alone by any means, seems to put no value on predicating an argument on what God says is true about human meaning. That, in his words, is “not an argument that will win today.” His thoughts about winning and the way to win rely on more recent U.S. Supreme Court opinions about the Free Speech Clause.
I once went in a different direction. I took verse 11 to mean that if I quoted God’s word or relied on God’s word as the predicate for my legal argument or policy initiative, there would be some form of “winning” or success in relation to what I was doing. After all, I was employing God’s Word.
That was a fanciful interpretation of verse 11. I equated God’s word from his mouth with the words that came out of my mouth. I was using Scripture like a talisman to winning, giving no thought to the Holy Spirit needing to make even God’s word effectual.
The description of prosperity—dare we say “the win”—that God’s word from His mouth is bringing begins verse 12. “For ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace: the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands”
And the cause for both human joy and peace among God’s people and the creational singing and applause is in verse 13. “Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree, and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree: and it shall be to the LORD for a name, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.” (emphasis supplied)
Isaiah’s description of winning should bring to mind creation and particularly the consequences of the Fall—“thorns” and “thistles” (Genesis 3:18). But it also tells us they will be replaced by fir and myrtle trees. This is a metaphorical “sign” for the beginning and implementation of God’s “win” over the Fall—“the times of the restoration of all things” (Acts 3:21)
The mountains, hills, and trees will be rejoicing because they have been “groaning” and ‘travailing” since Adam’s Fall (Romans 8:22).
And God’s people will have joy and peace, because they know the world is working perfectly in accord with God the Father’s covenant word with God the Son in the person of Jesus Christ for “the times of the restoration of all things” (Acts 3:21).
There is a fundamental truth underlying all others. God the Father “hast put all things in subjection under his feet” (Hebrews 2:8), referring to Jesus as the Father’s anointed, as Christ or Messiah. It is according to the covenant between Father and Son.
And though “now we see not yet all things put under him,” “we see Jesus” (Hebrews 2:9). But this “win” over all things is made sure because the Son of God, in the incarnate Jesus, was “made a surety of a better testament” or covenant (Hebrews 7:22). It is better than the one mediated by Moses (Galatians 3:19 and the whole book of Hebrews).
It is a new covenant for a new creation! See 2 Corinthians 5:17 and Galatians 6:15.. Those who know, believe in, and hold onto this objective truth—God’s “secret” (Psalm 25:14)—are never losing.
This sounds preposterous. But this objective truth leads to this knowledge: “[A]ll things are for your sakes, that the abundant grace might through the thanksgiving of many redound to the glory of God” (2 Corinthians 4:15).
And the context for that verse is Paul’s litany of losses: Being “troubled,” “perplexed,” “persecuted,” and “cast down”!
I submit that making an argument in law and public policy grounded in given and objective human meaning pursues winning. Why? Because it pursues what would surely come within God’s covenant-word purposes, namely, the restoration of the image of God as the understanding of persons the law countenances in its judgments.
As Justinian wrote in the Sixth century, “law is for persons.” Therefore, to me, recovering a right understanding of what it means to be human should be the priority for those in law and public policy.
But that will need to be joined with pastors who will disciple those in their pews on the glorious substantive content that belongs to image of God as revealed in the person of Christ. Until then, we’re all spitting in the wind.
