“Let Her Run!”
A New Op-Ed in Carolina Journal and the English-speaking Heritage of Public Theology
Our latest op-ed for the Carolina Journal proposes that our conservative super-majority state legislature “Slacken the ropes,” and “Open the Sails” to let the fair winds of God-given liberties move us forward (I remain thankful for and, thus, credit my early US Navy training, and my late father’s sea-going legacy for these nautical metaphors).
Specifically, I argue, in the pages of that award-winning publication, The Carolina Journal, that we should express and apply the biblical ideas of Samuel Rutherford (1600-1661) and John Locke (1632-1704) to practical questions in our time (and in our respective political jurisdictions). As we seek opportunities to speak Scriptural truth to influence moral issues of the day by “public theology,” we will stand in good company. The English Puritans, American Puritans, Jamestown settlers, and our Founding Fathers all advocated for biblical truth in the public realm.1 We certainly do not consider anything we write to be compared to even their most pedestrian works. However, we all do our bit according to the light and gifts we are granted by the Almighty.
I hope you get a chance to read the op-ed. What we seek to do in the “Old North State” (that is “North Carolina” for the uninitiated) can be done everywhere. When leftists want the field to themselves they cry “Culture War!” Or they impugn public voices of Christians as “playing politics” with religion. Has such a ploy worked? You be the judge. But remember this: The prophets knew no such distinction (read, e.g., Amos). The New Testament writers could simultaneously require public prayer for a Roman empower while decrying the sins of public officials (Matthew 14:1-14). Even Jesus said of Herod Antipas, “Go tell that fox . . .” (Luke 13:32).
Public Theology is not meddling. It can be illuminating. At times it is even transforming.
See, for example, Thomas S. Kidd. The Great Awakening: the Roots of Evangelical Christianity in Colonial America. Yale University Press, 2008., and; Sidney Earl Mead, and Robert Neelly Bellah. Religion and the American revolution. Edited by Jerald C. Brauer. Fortress Press, 1976.