C.S. Lewis once wrote that it may seem he is “trying to answer questions you never asked." Some may think that about my recent discourses on God's covenant secret and in relation to law. But Lewis also said those answers often "do not make sense until a man has reached those places.” Today, I hope those discourses will make sense. That "secret" explains what kind of thinking about or engagement in law and politics is salutary and what is in vain.

Today David talks about what he learned six months ago that is fundamental to the "secret" behind a Christian view of law. It helped him see why his worldview was more informed by Darwin and Nietzsche than Christ, and it further reformed his approach to legal and public policy advocacy.

Did you know that a Christian view of law hinges on a secret that God only makes known to those who fear him? Psalm 25:14 says, “The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him; and he will shew them his covenant.” Today, David explains how a Christian cosmology of law is embedded in that verse. And he explains how coming to know that secret after decades in evangelical churches awakened him from the Nietzschean cosmology that had informed his view of politics and law for decades.

The Apostle Paul writes that “the law is spiritual,” but what does that mean? Today, David answers that question. And the answer will explain why he said last week that the answer to “What is a Christian view of law?” depends on a person’s metaphysics. The answer Scripture provides is the only antidote to the metaphysical nihilism that infects so many Christians engaged in law and public policy advocacy, from professionals to preachers.

According to Romans 7:14, the answer depends on one’s metaphysic. Today David explains why some Christians would find such an answer too philosophical and speculative sounding to be Christian, even perhaps even unbiblical. But Herman Bavinck and Abraham Kuyper told us more than 100 years ago this would happen. Kuyper even saw the Calvinism he loved grinding to a metaphysical halt.

Today’s episode is an “extra” for this week in anticipation of Friday’s podcast on “A Christian View of Law.” It is a sermon David preached on Psalm 25:14 in November 2023 to re-ignite the imagination of those who might have lost the wonder of the “secret” God reveals to “those who fear him.”

What is a “Christian” view of law? David says the answer depends entirely on what the word “Christian” means. So, in this episode, he explains why he thinks the word has lost it original meaning,;  pans an emerging alternative, “Jesus follower;” and sets the stage for next week’s topic: Are “Christians” using the law lawfully?

Today, David looks at what esteemed jurist Joseph Story said about the First Amendment’s “Free Speech Clause”—debated this week in the U.S. Supreme Court—and a type of harm it did not protect. Today, even that harm makes no sense, and so it is allowed to proliferate. David explains what is missing in even doctrinally sound Christian thinking that prevents the scourge of pornography from being addressed properly in our law.

Today’s episode is David’s report on a “autopsy” performed by a few of the remaining sons of Issachar in America on the “Death of Evangelicalism.” Its death was pronounced by a Final Judgment, aptly named, issued by the United States Supreme Court in 2015. If you want to appreciate why evangelicalism seems so fruitlessness in culture and law, you will want to listen to the report. Thankfully, he notes, the dead are raised to life again according to the Gospel.

History shows that the purpose of the First Amendment's religion clauses was to continue the reformation between religious liberty and religious toleration that ended in England with the restoration of the monarchy and the Church of England's primacy. Recent arguments in the U.S. Supreme Court on religious liberty show that Christians in America have forgotten that purpose and providentially given mission. That failure has put Christians under the thumb of the godless. It is time that Church re-vive this stillborn reformation to reconcile religious liberty with righteous and just civil laws.