David French: Grand Polarizer
As is probably well-known within Evangelical circles by now, as consequence of the cancellation of a panel to which David French was invited, French went full tilt in The New York Times to rhetorically avenge the church to which he once belonged.
The occurrence involves a General Assembly, an occasion when the elders and representatives of existing church members assemble to map out the denomination’s future and deal with existing theological/ethical issues. By nature, and by right, an outsider should not expect to be invited to this sort of affair, any more than an employer should expect to be present during a union meeting, especially when union members are voting on a new labor contract.
One or more of the organizers of this Assembly flubbed in not properly considering the full consequences of this invite. As should be expected of true Christians, this denomination invariably pays the price for such flubs (Luke 14:28–30). Nevertheless, it is proper to ask: when is it appropriate for a self-styled Christian to wash the household’s dirty linen in public to be adjudged by non-believing adversaries (1 Cor 6:1-8)? It is not as if sexual abuse is being hidden or excused. It is merely that this seeming narcissist lost a speaking engagement.
Is David French a polarizer as is claimed within conservative Christian circles? Let us consider his latest rant in the NYT. Through the platforms to which French has access, he has far more “social power” than the small denomination he denounces. Revenues at The New York Times alone more than double the contributions to the PCA. This proxy understates the disparity in relative social power. Thus, David French is punching down in egoistic vengeance against an adversary which lacks an equivalent social platform to present their case.
It is the content of French’s rant which validates his reputation as The Great Polarizer within Evangelical Christendom. French mentions the abuse that he and his family faced from Internet trolls, especially pertaining to the Ethiopian child they adopted, after casting his rhetorical skills to oppose Trump and disparage his Evangelical supporters.
But what has the fetishes of Alt-Right extremists to do with the Presbyterian Church of America? Can French empirically prove that any of these horrid images and personal threats he received emanated from actual PCA members? As a lawyer, French should know that guilt by association and ad hominem border upon the slanderous.
French contrives to conscript another Evangelical boogeyman, Douglas Wilson, into his polemic. But Wilson does not and has never belonged to the PCA, but some even smaller denomination in some backwater. The Reformed Presbyterian Church in the United States, which has but 7,800 members in North America, openly holds theonomic views. What has Douglas Wilson to do with the eldership of the PCA? It is the equivalent of denigrating all Catholics because Hitler was baptized as so in his infancy.
One notices from his many past philippics, how condescendingly high from his self-righteous hobbyhorse, French pontificates. To this outside observer, who is neither theological or sociopolitically left nor right, French has devolved into an unsavory serpent, too full of himself, unfair in his strawman contortions, and a downright intellectual bully.
City Mouse and Country Mouse
French represents one pole of a continuum between Ideological Cosmopolitanism and Cultural Nativism. The latter term is superior to “Nationalist” aspersions. For nationalism speaks of common notions and mores begotten from common ethnic roots. But unlike Europeans, America has historically promoted a civic nationalism, a body of ideas and mores, which originated in church assemblies, was later fashioned in Enlightenment-style salons, and modified later by immigrants. Ethnicity is not the primary root of those ideas.
Ideological Cosmopolitanism has previously existed in the West, in the polytheistic pantheon which existed in the Classical Era (c. 323 BCE–c. 380 CE). Yet, the Christian cause was able to flourish within that cultural milieu, although its adherents often suffered civic persecution.
Political entities experience societal entropy and disintegration as consequence of Ideological Cosmopolitanism, such as the Roman Crisis of the Third Century (235–284 BCE). There is no common social vision for which a populace to rally and dedicate themselves. Where there is no vision, the people cast off restraint. Extensive use of foreign mercenaries are proxy indicators of political apathy towards the survival and welfare of a commonweal which no longer serves a populace’s interests.
In contrast, the virtuous Eternal Rome of the Republic enabled the Roman-Italian commonwealth to remain intact and ultimately victor, although suffering great catastrophes at the hands of Hannibal during the Second Punic War (218–201 BCE).
Therefore, there is a deep and reasonable argument against the unbounded sociopolitical pluralism which David French effectively advocates.
There is also a deep and reasonable argument against any form of ideological hegemony, whether those which emerged during the late Roman and Byzantine empires, or in the gulags of U.S.S.R. and killing fields of Cambodia. Ideological hegemony lends to psychic suffocation (Sinclair Lewis, Main Street, 1920), social and political oppression, and schism. Mesopotamian Jews and Coptic Egypt welcomed the Muslims after being subject to Constantinople’s religious “orthodoxy.”
French, along with accomplices, Rob Reiner and Jeffrey Goldberg, would have us believe that theonomy (a.k.a. “Christian Nationalism”) is a substantive movement within (White) Evangelicalism, or that this reaction to Ideological Cosmopolitanism is a local phenomenon. But the Nothing of Ideological Cosmopolitanism, which would sweep clean all meaning, and thereby reduce humanity to grazing and rutting, provokes psychological revulsion worldwide (i.e., Turkey, India).
Jewish antipathy towards Cultural Nativism is understandable, even if detrimental to social cohesion. Since Cyrus the Great, the father of cosmopolitanism, Diaspora Jews have sought to culturally flatten every goyim society into which they wandered, this in order to place Diaspora Jews on an even socioeconomic keel. But this cosmopolitan thrust provokes an equal and opposite reaction. We are now witnessing this reaction.
Ideological Cosmopolitanism
Ideological Cosmopolitanism has historically been accompanied with and undergirded by philosophical, epistemological, and ethical skepticism, wherein it is affirmed that there are no firm verities or ways of knowing them, wherein there is no intrinsic validity to ethical injunctions, or superior ways of ontological existence. Herein, the Western Roman Empire did not fall, it merely transformed, even as cities drastically depopulated, trade and the economy collapsed, knowledge was lost, and existence was “nasty, brutish, and short.”
Ideological Cosmopolitanism is accompanied by the Cult of Toleration, wherein it is affirmed that my gods are equivalent to your gods, my ideas are equivalent to your ideas, my ethical notions are equivalent to your ethical notions, and my way of being is equivalent to your way of being. Yet, in strange self-contradiction, modern worshippers of this Cult, unlike ancient acolytes, are coercively dogmatic over toleration, insisting upon the moral affirmation of the perverse and the insane with all the zeal of a Torquemada.
Ideological Cosmopolitanism has prevailed in societies before, most notoriously among the Greek elite, just prior to Alexander the Great, until the Hellenist empires were conquered by Republican Romans who, at that time, yet believed in the intrinsic validity of their mores and justice. The first political consequence of Ideological Cosmopolitanism is loss of a free civic polity. For free civic polities require an intrinsic and enduring belief in a common core of verities and virtues. Ultimately, Ideological Cosmopolitanism leads to geopolitical decline and defeat, often at the hands of those who yet believe that there exists some correspondence between ethical/prudential means and ontological ends.
True Christianity cannot concur with this prevailing Weltanschauung. The latter is incontrovertibly and intractably antithetical to the God who is there. Since more prosaic notions are logically downstream from philosophical/theological conceptions of the cosmos, this will naturally lead to a bevy of irreconcilable differences at the prosaic level.
Sign of the Times and a Proper Christian Response
French advocates for Ideological Cosmopolitanism at a sociopolitical level. Moreover, French is an Establishment Republican, whose policies have proven and are intrinsically antithetical to the interests of the commons. “Populists” like Donald Trump are natural reactions to the impoverishment and demoralization of the commons, courtesy of economic globalism. This demoralization likewise occurred during the late Roman Republic and late 19th century / early 20th century Europe.
French represents one pole within the sociopolitical continuum between Ideological Cosmopolitanism and Cultural Nativism, although he thinks that he occupies the center. This continuum is one of the pivot points of the current polarization which permeates the West. Because of his extreme position at least within Christendom and in his self-righteous nastiness towards Evangelicals, who subscribe to various forms of Cultural Nativism, it is difficult to conceive how French can be a bona fide agent for reconciliation and peace. Had French been allowed to attend this now cancelled PCA panel, he would have himself become the lightning rod for great acrimony and vitriol.
I would like to fancy myself as having a cosmopolitan scope of mind. Yet, I disdain Ideological Cosmopolitanism and its logical sociopolitical ramifications. Nor am I a fanboy of Cultural Nativism. Consistent with historical Evangelicalism, there exists a core body of noetic, ethical, juridical, and prudential truths which must be zealously abided and guarded. Beyond this, there is permission to differ, even err in that difference. This is Francis Schaeffer’s ‘freedom within form,’ or Cicero’s distinction between ius gentium and culturally bound beliefs and mores.
In keeping with Paul’s missional modus operandi, I must become like a cosmopolitan to win the cosmopolitans, and a nativist to win the nativists. It is not that I do not hold strong sociopolitical opinions. It is that the cosmopolitan scope of mind seeks to comprehend and sympathize with the concerns of both polarized partisans.