Will the Real Nietzscheans Please Stand Up?  

Introduction
Carl Trueman is not wrong that there is always a temptation in the flesh of man to grasp for power like the Devil. And to the extent that Nietzsche’s “will to power” is making any kind of comeback on the conservative right (e.g. Andrew Tate? Nick Fuentes?), consider me a fellow and enthusiastic objector. The early Reformers had the Anabaptist anarchists and peasants’ revolts, and the founding fathers were very concerned about the French revolution bleeding onto American soil.

But imagine writing in praise of what Trueman calls “The Calvary Option” in 1760s colonial America and not clearly identifying Rousseau and Robespierre as his targets (even if Robespierre was still in short pants in the 1760s). As a fellow Reformed minister, I agree that ordinary gospel ministry remains essential, but something about Trueman’s apercu of ministerial life reminds me of the Anglican bishop who said, “Everywhere Paul went riots broke out; wherever I go, they serve tea.” 

No doubt, many modern evangelical Christians need to be reminded of the potency of ordinary gospel ministry, but when the Persian regime declared lawfare on the Jews, Mordecai wasn’t warning Esther against the temptations to worldly power. Haman was the real Nietzschean in that story. 

A Biblical Social Ethic
The New Testament ethic unashamedly leads with kindness, generosity, willingness to be wronged, and costly forgiveness. Christians are commanded to love their enemies, do good to those that persecute them, and practice radical hospitality to strangers, widows, and orphans. This much is clear. But what has often been missed, forgotten, or obfuscated is the rest of the New Testament’s witness. There are other instructions and examples. The same Christ who taught us to turn the other cheek, called the religious leaders of His day “snakes” and “hypocrites.” The same apostle who insisted that we return blessing for cursing, cursed those who preached another gospel and suggested that the Judaizers castrate themselves. Clearly the fruit of the Spirit is a bit more complex and earthy than Trueman lets on. 

Certainly, Trueman cites Nathan the prophet’s courageous confrontation of David’s sin, but it is a bit unclear what this “prophetic voice” amounts to. He says, “calling anyone and everyone to faith and repentance, no matter the social and political exigencies of the day,” which is true enough. But then he explicitly objects to “engaging in an apocalyptic culture war” and “crudity, verbal thuggery, and… the destruction of any given opponent’s character.” Is Trueman talking about when Jesus destroyed Herod’s character by calling him “that fox?” Obviously, not all tactics are morally acceptable for Christians, but if we are going to talk about a “prophetic voice” we cannot then ignore the actual biblical prophets who engaged in the original “apocalyptic culture wars” and resorted to vehement denunciations and obscenities more often than your average seminary professor. While prophetic ministry must not be belligerent; it is militant and often apocalyptic and sometimes crude. 

We certainly have rules of engagement from our Lord, but the point that many on the new Christian right are making is that certain extra-biblical standards of etiquette and propriety have been used to muzzle Christians from faithfully confronting evil in our culture. Lopsided descriptions of Christian ethics have played their part in feeding the alien “social imaginary” that Trueman has so helpfully exposed elsewhere. Even “ordinary ministry” bromides are being weaponized against modern Ezekiels and Jeremiahs, Hezekiahs and Josiahs seeking to destroy contemporary idols. No doubt there were some pietistic Israelites reminding Elijah on Mt. Carmel that real ministry is “unglamorous,” while denouncing his crude mockery and trying to fight Baal with “worldly forms of power.” 

For example, Keith Markley, a public school bus driver from a small town in Idaho was fired last year for putting up a sign in his yard objecting to obscene materials in the school library. Turns out several of the leaders of the public school were evangelical Christians who accused him of being divisive and stirring up trouble. Who are the Nietzscheans in that story? It was not Nietzschean for Josiah to tear down the houses of the sodomites, any more than it would be Nietzschean for a current Christian magistrate to enforce obscenity laws against Drag Queen story hour in a public library. 

Paleo-Kuyperianism
Part of what often seems to be missing is an appreciation for different roles in society by God-fearing Christians. As Ben Crenshaw noted in his reply to Trueman, Augustine grappled with this reality in City of God, and the Magisterial Reformers extended his work with their “Two Kingdoms.” The Dutch Reformed statesman and pastor Abraham Kuyper called the notion “sphere sovereignty.” The point is that all authority is derived from the Lord Jesus Christ, and therefore, family government, civil government, and church government are all under Christ and have particular assignments and responsibilities from Him. While later Kuyperians sometimes seemed to seal these spheres off from one another, a paleo-Kuyperianism recognizes overlapping responsibilities with Christ and Scripture speaking authoritatively to all of them. True Christian liberty is the freedom to perform our duties under Christ.

While Trueman refers primarily to “pastors” and “the Church,” he does not seem to admit different roles and responsibilities, and therefore the possibility of somewhat different tactics depending on the role and sphere and moment. For example, it could be fully appropriate for a minister of the gospel to accept martyrdom under certain circumstances, but a husband or father ordinarily has a responsibility and duty to defend his family. If a man fails to provide for and protect the physical well-being of his family, Scripture says he is worse than an unbeliever. Likewise, a Christian magistrate sometimes has a duty to execute murderers and wage defensive wars. And these duties are his “ordinary” ministry of Christian justice. The sun also rises on a Christian sheriff refusing to enforce COVID lockdown tyranny.

Conclusion: The Presbyterian Revolt
As Gary Steward has argued in his book Justifying Revolution, the American War for Independence was not a moral lapse into Enlightenment rationalism or revolutionary radicalism but rather in a large part, the fruit of faithful pastors preaching the limits of civil power and the biblical grounds for Christian liberty, resistance to tyranny, and just war principles. Recognizing the age-old specter of “negative world” looming over their colonies in the 1760s, American ministers like Gilbert Tennent and John Witherspoon looked back to the Magna Carta and Protestant Reformers like Junius Brutus, John Knox, and Samuel Rutherford, to preach religious and political liberty grounded in Scripture and the Reformation tradition. 

Given the pervasive Scotch-Irish Presbyterianism of the colonies, it is understandable that King George referred to the American Declaration of Independence as a “presbyterian revolt” and denounced the clergy as the “black-robed regiment” (alluding to the widespread practice of Presbyterian pastors preaching in black robes). The prime minister of England, Horace Walpole said in Parliament that “Cousin America has run off with a Presbyterian parson,” apparently referring to Witherspoon, also a Presbyterian minister, signer of the Declaration of Independence and president of the Presbyterian college Princeton. And when the British General Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown all but one of the American Colonels were Presbyterian elders. 

The first generations of American preachers would beg to differ with Trueman’s limited vision for their ordinary role. Yes, it was a prophetic voice. Yes, it was embedded in the ordinary ministry of Word and Sacrament, but it was a clear prophetic voice that extended far beyond isolated ethical violations or what might have been considered appropriate etiquette. An ordinary prophetic ministry discerns the times and calls all men everywhere not only to repent of their sins and trust in Christ, but also to resist tyranny and embrace true Christian liberty in every sphere using every lawful tactic. This isn’t Nietzschean Revolution; this is Magisterial Reformation.

Photo by Alex Moliski on Unsplash