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Dear Friends,
My last Square Inch correspondence, “Unequally Yoked,” appears to have struck a chord. For others, it struck a nerve. I’d like to thank those in the former category who took the time to reach out and thank me for the essay. A little encouragement goes a long way, believe it or not. There are (many) days when I want to quit social and cultural commentary altogether, but then I get emails and messages from people thanking me for giving them intelligible words for the dismay and discomfort they feel in their guts. People often know something bothers them but they cannot articulate how or why. Charlie Kirk’s Memorial was one of those events.
In its aftermath, social media (or the algorithm) has apparently decided it is time for yet another round of raging about … Tim Keller and his “Third Way” approach to politics. It is as predictable now as it is boring. My view of the matter is simple—and, if I may be so bold, correct: the vast majority of people who cannot cease raging about the late Tim Keller do so because he insightfully and quite powerfully identified a particular form of idolatry to which they are whole-heartedly committed. He is a threat to their idol. Which means, ironically enough, that he was prophetic in the most biblical sense—the very thing they are so determined to claim he wasn’t.
As for those for whom my essay struck a nerve instead of a chord, they have nothing to offer in reply except the Bulverism (“You only say that because…”) and ad hominem I predicted. That’s what you do when you don’t have an argument.
The other day I ran across an old Twitter thread Keller had posted about his “Third Way.” It is instructive to revisit it:
Some have said that my being attacked by both the ‘right’ and the ‘left’ is a sign I am teaching truth because truth is found in the middle between extremes. I appreciate the support, but that’s not accurate.
First, it’s important to note everyone occupies SOME middle because there’s always someone to one side or the other on issues who thinks YOU have compromised. Nearly everyone is in a ‘middle’—the question is: which middle is the right one?
Second, Christians should never seek a middle ground for its own sake. The goal should be to take positions that do justice to the Biblical teaching, regardless of whether the world sees you—in its categories-- as an extremist or a moderate.
Third, often Christians look like they are taking a ‘Third Way’ not because they are moderates but because, in being biblical, they combine what the world considers extreme positions that normally cannot go together. The Bible’s view of humanity in the imago Dei is far more optimistic about human nature than Rousseau & yet its view of human sin is far more pessimistic than Hobbes—both at once! It might be fair to call that a 3rd way between alternatives but it is not a half-&-half middle way.
Fourth, when Christians formulated the doctrine of Christ’s person, was it a half-way between Docetism (Christ isn’t really human) and Ebionism (Christ isn’t really divine)? No, Jesus is not half God and half human but fully God and fully human. The biblical doctrine IS NOT a middle way. It ‘diagonalizes’ the alternatives (C.Watkin). It ‘subversively fulfills’ the alternatives (D.Strange) That is, it fully critiques both and yet fulfills the best aspirations of both at the same time, without merely combining them or borrowing from them. The biblical position is not somewhere on a spectrum between alternatives—it is off the spectrum yet acknowledges the concerns of all the positions.
5th, my main criticism of so many Christians on social media who attack from the ‘Right’ or from the ‘Left’ is that they unknowingly wed the faith with secular political ideologies. On the right people make idols of individual freedom & of the market-& demonize government. On the left people make idols of sexual expression, racial identity, & the State & demonize religion & love of country. Biblical faith sees all of these as good things, but relativizes them before God and his love and grace. All things were made good (Gen 1), all things are fallen (Gen 3)-yet God through Jesus is redeeming all things.
That is as clear a statement of what the “Third Way” is and isn’t as you’re likely to find. It is precisely what I was gesturing at in saying that in MAGA world there is no “space” between one’s political cause and the kingdom of God. Put another way, the Bible doesn’t stand over against one’s politics in critique or judgment; it is simply coopted as a tool to advance one’s politics.
Now, one can take issue with all sorts of applications of Keller’s principle. One can point out where he was sometimes inconsistent with the principle. One could sigh and lament, for example, as I do, that his frequent knee-jerk criticisms of free markets appear to owe a debt to secular economic ideologies—that is, he himself sometimes fell prey to the very trap he identifies. You can read 3,000 words of my own critique of Keller here. He’s not immune from criticism. But none of those critiques change this fact:
The principle is cogent, Christian, and incandescently correct.
And yet my social media feeds are overflowing with well-known people gnashing their teeth at the principle—you know, that outrageous principle that the Word of God is our ultimate and absolute norm and all human ideologies and endeavors (including the political movement you are in L-O-V-E with) are subject to its searching judgment. I can think of two, and only two possible reasons for this
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