An unfortunate new fissure in an already narrow sliver of terrain
I'd hate to see this shape up as, to paint it with a broad brush, Walker vs. French, because they are both valuable non-Trumpist voices. But I know where I stand when it's framed like that
David French has been an invaluable voice for those of us who consider ourselves conservative and, for that reason, never fell under the sway of the cult fever that has infected the movement.
French’s life story is one to admire. He signed up for military service in his late 30s, after he’d started a family, passed the bar and had begun practicing law. He and his wife adopted an Ethiopian daughter, for which they came in for online vitriol and even threats that made them realize racism hadn’t been totally eradicated from American society. He’s been a lightning rod since the advent of Trumpism, having to deal with not only carefully thought out counter-arguments to his basic stance from the likes of Sohrab Ahmari but also the gratuitous cruelty of entertainer columnists like Kurt Schlichter.
French has unflinchingly delved into a number of instances of sexual corruption within institutional Christianity.
He insists on heart being present in our societal discourse. This stems from his deep Christian faith. I’m immediately humbled when I read an articulation of how it informs his work. I should be so consistent and confident some day.
The above made his weekly Sunday edition of The French Press yesterday tough to grapple with. He bumps up against the line, so often blurry for us to view anyway, between Christianity’s offer of embrace of all on the one hand and sound doctrine on the other.
He’s come down in favor of the Respect for Marriage Act, saying this:
The Senate bill passed cloture last week, with the support of 50 Democrats and 12 Republicans. A final vote is expected soon. I don’t expect the vote to end America’s cultural and legal conflict over religious freedom, gay rights, and religious orthodoxy.
In fact, the struggle over American pluralism never truly ends, and people of good will can draw different lines in different places. But after almost 20 years of thought, debate, elections, and litigation, we just might be inching closer to protecting all sides of our cultural divide—even when they disagree about the most profound matters of family and faith.
That term “pluralism” also shows up in a Christianity Today piece by Carl Esbeck, which I was also surprised to see, given what I know about new editor Russell Moore’s views, principles and desired direction for the magazine:
This week, the Senate advanced the Respect for Marriage Act (RMA). The law tries to balance the unquestionable goodness of traditional marriage with America’s changing views on same-sex relationships. Some conservatives will undoubtedly treat the act as a loss. But others will take the view that, in a morally pluralistic society, a few concessions yield a win for the common good. I’m one of them.
Yes, we are a more demographically diverse nation than ever before. Pluralistic, if you will. But to frame the landscape as an array of equally valid belief systems overlooks a key consideration.
I’m going to defer to this Twitter thread by Southern Baptist Seminary Christian ethics professor Andrew T. Walker for articulation of this point:
The Cuomoization of marriage is not a tenable safe harbor for Christians. "I personally believe in biblical marriage but allow for same-sex civil marriage" misunderstands what marriage is in Scripture. This is increasingly going to be an approach taken. It's wrong.
Scripture justifies no bifurcation between sacred and civil marriage. Yes, marriage is a metaphor for the gospel in Ephesians 5, but that in no way abrogates its relationship to the creation order. It only heightens it. Marriage is rooted in creation. It is "natural" so to speak.
Those who want to separate "religious marriage" and "civil marriage" still owe us an answer, "what is [civil] marriage?" That answer should be based on sound reason & sound principles. Same-sex marriage is not, which is why it fails to be marital and why it fails to be biblical.
Lewis would never have countenanced the idea that marriage is anything other than conjugal and complementary, even if he had a religious and civil account for marriage as such. This no doubt springs from his views on the natural law/Tao.
Marriage is not an ecclesial ordinance like the Lord's Supper. It's a creational ordinance, binding and applicable to all who meet the necessary requirements: Male-female complementarity. It's the cornerstone of civil order. Get it wrong and we get the taproot of society wrong.
Society has a duty to organize itself according to Scriptural realities that optimize human flourishing. Failing to uphold the distinctiveness of those realities under a frayed concept of pluralism is not a principle that Scripture recognizes as compatible with flourishing.
If I had more time, I’d love to debate my friend @DavidAFrench
on RFMA right now. Instead I’m preparing for a Supreme Court argument where the govt says it can impose fines & jail time on those who don’t create speech celebrating same-sex marriage.
This current situation is just what we don’t need. It adds new layers of fault lines to the already overwhelmingly fractured landscape. French is a co-founding contributor to The Dispatch, which has held firm as a reliably conservative anti-Trumpism site since its founding, often juxtaposed against The Bulwark, which was founded at roughly the same time and started with the same premise
, but has since drifted leftward. French’s position on this renders his publication vulnerable to Trumpist claims that Never Trump figures and outlets on the right inevitably become squishes who acquiesce to each goalpost-moving initiative from the left. It also will surely muddy the waters of distinction between folks like Walker, Waggoner and Carl Trueman on the one hand and the yay-hoos of the evangelical world on the other.
Now, a word ought to be said about the Colorado gay nightclub shooting, as in condemning it. But let’s not prematurely organize any stop-the-hate rallies. Investigators know very little about the shooter at this point, other than that his mom called the cops on him in June 2021 for threatening her with an arsenal of weapons including a homemade bomb. (Officially, authorities have not confirmed that the suspect in that situation is the same as in this one, although they have the same name and the first incident happened about fifteen miles from the nightclub.)
So, as in most mass shootings, there’s reason to conclude that the guy was too mentally off to have some kind of focused animus toward homosexual people.
But regardless of whether that was a factor, the point, as has always been the point in the rule of law in America, is that it is wrong to shoot up a public place. Motive makes no difference. We make crimes out of certain behaviors, because those behaviors violate others’ basic rights, rights that all Americans, regardless of demographic, have.
But then, I also await his next round of explanation - and not with cynicism, but hopefulness that he can flesh out his position in such a way that those of us presently perplexed and dismayed can find common ground.
French has a track record as the kind of man who will grant that respect to those with whom he’s engaged in spirited discourse. It seems only fair to extend the same courtesy to him.
