Over on The Green Room I’ve put up my latest on different models of the kingdom of God. This time, the problem “fortification paradigm” churches – i.e. those tempted to fundamentalism – most need to watch out for:

The underlying problem here is a failure to understand that there is no expression of the gospel, or of Christian faith and life, that is not culturally contextualized.

I’m going to call the failure to recognize this “cultural puritanism.” (I hate to use that term because I actually like Puritanism when it’s seeking purity by the right standard! It’s when our own cultural instantiation of the gospel becomes the standard that puritanism goes wrong.)

Risk a little cultural contamination and read the piece, and let me know what you think!

Amid Trump’s execrable executive-order follies and the scandalous placement of a political operative (and a scoundrel at that) at the center of the national security apparatus, it’s worth pointing out that a certain kind of conservative argued in favor of Trump (or at least that Trump was not an unacceptable option) precisely on grounds that he would disrupt the inevitable growth of the administrative state. Holman Jenkins, formerly my favorite columnist, bet particularly long on this point.

Of course, the fact that Trumpian chaos will make the problem worse rather than better was clear from the outset. This is what happens when prudence – rightly ordering means so they match our ends – is no longer considered a cardinal moral virtue. People feel free to do any damn thing to achieve their goals, as long as they have the right goals.

The Green Room carries the latest in my series on three models of the kingdom of God:

In some ways fortification churches do best at emphasizing the cruciform nature of discipleship to Jesus Christ. Believers are required to submit to the death of their desires for both individual comfort (as against the accommodation paradigm) and corporate influence (as against the dominance paradigm). The church is not here to make us comfortable and happy, nor is it here to influence society; it is here to become like Christ, regardless of the consequences.

As always, your thoughts are appreciated!

Today TGC carries my article on the challenges facing theological education:

How we got into this mess is a long and complicated story. One of the biggest problems is the 19th-century German research university model of education, with its emphasis on abstraction, fact/value distinction, and scholarly specialization. That model is now the only model of what counts as “knowledge” in the Western world, and theological schools are not immune from its dominance. Theological educators are professionally evaluated and promoted based on whether they produce scholarly books and articles (judged by the 19th-century German research university model of “scholarship”) much more than on whether they produce disciples.

I’m honored to be spearheading a new event, Karam Forum, March 2-3, where theological educators will collaborate and equip one another to meet these challenges. If you have the exciting privilege of being a theological educator, consider joining us!

Aside from the obvious (lose the Republican GOTV organizer’s email address) what practical steps can culture war churches take to move to a more theologically sound way of advancing justice and mercy in the public square? In my latest for The Green Room I focus on three specific steps, including:

The Past: Dominance paradigm churches overestimate both the moral and religious integrity of the American past. There is, to be sure, much that is morally good and authentically Christian in our national history. But it is important to see the ugliness and the Romantic, heretical religious individualism as well. Nothing other than God and his word (incarnate and written) is really pure.

This will not only (hopefully) cure us of poisonous nostalgia and teach us to set forward-looking rather than backward-looking goals. Knowing more clearly the story of how (e.g.) Christianity was essential to the abolition of slavery will also help us to see the deficiencies in our account of moral knowledge.

Real moral goodness is known by nature but it is not fully known by nature. The gospel, the cross and the whole biblical story from beginning to end help us understand what it means to be good in a way that those outside simply don’t have access to. This means the church does not just fight for the good in the public square; it has to develop and offer to each culture a unique understanding of what it means to be good in the context of that particular culture.

Next in the series, what fundamentalist/isolationist churches can teach the rest of us about cultural engagement.