day no. 17,446: catholicity, depravity, and liberty

"Liberal political orders have, ‘in God’s providence,’ secured religious liberty, limited political power and recognized human dignity—and one of government’s duties is ‘to protect the free exercise of religion, including liberty of conscience.’ Government should “not interfere in matters of faith” despite having a responsibility to encourage ‘piety, justice, [and] public order.’” — Darryl Hart, The Presbyterian Middle Way, WSJ

"But liberal political orders did nothing of the kind. They did not secure religious liberty, they inherited religious liberty. They were certainly on third base, but they did not hit that triple. Christians secured religious liberty on account of what they had to work out between rival Christian factions. And Christians limited political power because they believed in the depravity of man instead of the perfectability of man." — Douglas Wilson, Darryl Hart, the Wall Street Journal, and the First Person Singular Pronoun in the Objective Case

The prodigal made a few friends on his father's dime, but he didn't make single penny of what he spent. He inherited all of it and spent it liberally. Secularism is not the root of religious freedom, religious liberty is the fruit of Christendom. Freedom of speech is the unique product of Christian culture and governance. Liberty is not a value of Islam or Judaism or Secularism. They cannot produce it even if they wanted to and they wouldn't even if they could. They don't want their neighbors to be allowed to peacefully disagree with them from the comfort of their own homes.

Religious liberty is the product of the only holy catholic and apostolic church. The protestant vision of unity and charity among brothers allows for liberty of conscience without condoning any unconscionable libertarian nonsense. In order for Christians to coexist, liberty of denominational preferences had to be permitted without providing a blank check for heresy to be tolerated under a guise of catholicity. In addition, limited government sprang from the doctrine of total depravity since no man is good, not one and ergo no one man should have unlimited power to rule without restraint. Christendom is the source, therefore, of both religious freedom and checks and balances and distribution of power in the government. In other words, trust your brothers to be Christian even when you disagree on secondary matters and do not trust your neighbor to be honest when he has more power than you do. Those two instincts pair well and have produced one of the best attempts at Christendom thus far.

May God lead us, like the prodigal, home before we spend all of His riches and may it not require a famine to motivate us to move, but may we get a famine if that's the only way to point us back in the right direction.