A while back I read Nancy Pearcey’s book Total Truth. My
main concern is to address what she has to say about two
things. One, the idea of no (religious/spiritual) neutrality
and two, what are her views on the religious/spiritual nature
of civil government.
In general I would say she does a very good job with the first
point. As a Francis Shaffer disciple she shows that religious
thought, attitudes, presuppositions, i.e., belief, form our
every actions. She spends many words exposing the myth that
Christianity affects only one of the two spheres of life. She
uses many word couples to define what she means by these two
spheres: mind vs heart, private vs public, personal preference
vs scientific knowledge, values vs facts, sacred vs secular,
revelation vs reason, etc. She acknowledges many belief
systems and identifies what is their tightest held (core)
presupposition and even says “In this sense, we could say that
every alternative to Christianity is a religion.” She ties
this into the first point of the; creation, fall, redemption
model; given to us as Christians. In other words, who (or
what) is held as “creator”? What is one’s belief in the
“fall”? Who or what is wrong and needs fixing? She reminds
the Christian of our cultural mandate given both to Adam and
again to Noah and finally realized in the Great Commission
(simply because this cultural mandate was never revoked). In
other words, how can I apply “redemption” or attempt to make
culture better?
Taking up a good chunk of the book is a treatment of
Intelligent Design vs (macro) evolution. If you are
interested in this subject at all Nancy’s comments alone in
this area are worth your reading of this book. One of the
ramifications of our culture’s acceptance of evolution instead
of Divine creation is found in civil law. Nancy says “Holmes
took the idea that the source of law is nothing but evolving
custom. Whereas traditional Western legal philosophy had
based law on an unchanging source (on natural law, derived
ultimately from divine law).” This pragmatic view of law and
customs “inevitably leads to a pluralism of beliefs, all of
them transient and none of them eternally or universally
true.” In a sense, this is the Southern Baptist view of
politics. Dr. Richard Land preaches political pluralism as a
good thing for our culture. But that’s another book review.
Nancy quotes Denzel in a way that even she approves of a
political pluralistic society. “It became clear to Denzel
that in a pluralistic society, Christians need to master
apologetics …”
In conclusion of point one let me quote Nancy. “… it is
possible for even a Christian to be controlled by Satan and do
his work. There is no neutral ground in the spiritual battle
between the forces of God and the forces of the devil. If
some area of our lives is not fully submitted in obedience to
God, then in practice we are under the control of Satan in
that area — giving him the allegiance that belongs to God
alone.”
Concerning the second point, what does Christianity or the
Bible have to say about civil government I started out
hopeful. Early in her book on page 34 she writes “I can say
from experience that few hold an explicitly Christian
political philosophy.” She went on to quote a political
staffer who also was a committed Christian “I’m politically
conservative, not because I see how they’re rooted in the
Bible.” She concludes this early paragraph in her book “[The
staffer] knew he should formulate a biblically based
philosophy of government, but he simply didn’t know how to
proceed.” But where does she go from there?
Nancy says “I suggest that the assumption of autonomous
individualism is a central factor in the breakdown of American
society today.” Does she apply this to certain religious or
civil thinking? She says “the priesthood of all believers was
taken to mean religion of the people, by the people, and for
the people.” She mentions John LeLand as one of the backers
of individual liberty in both ecclesiastical as well as
political thought. Toward the end of her book Nancy mentions
the common error. Popular evangelicals were sounding the same
note as the early social contract theorists … who regarded
social structures … formed by the consent of autonomous
individuals living in a ‘state of nature’.”
Nancy concludes with “the dilemma is that humans irresistibly
and unavoidably make moral judgments — and yet nonbibilical
worldviews give no basis for them.” So then what about moral
judgments involving civil law and punishment that have no
biblical basis? She danced about this question but never
really attempted to take it on.
In the study guide section of the book she mentions that “back
in the age of state churches, it was Christian dissenters who
framed the case for pluralism and religious liberty. Today,
in the age of state schools, Christians ought to be framing
the case for pluralism and freedom in education as well.”
This seemed to contradict what she had written earlier about
individual autonomy being a major plank of the evil two-story
culture theory. This bothered me so much that I asked her
“[you wrote that] ‘Christian dissenters who framed the case
for pluralism and religious liberty’ Was this ‘case’ made
using Scriptural exegesis?” She actually replied — but in a
two-story cultural manner! Is it any wonder that our
Christian politicians who desire to be biblical are continuing
in languish simply not knowing how to proceed?