A Real Confusion, by Doug Wilson

A real confusion of categories can be seen throughout the entire paragraph, but it is nicely summed up with this sentence. “To put it bluntly, the sword cannot be used to impose Christianity.” Well, of course not, and I don’t remember any of us arguing that it could be used that way. But the obvious truth of this is being used to obscure another truth, every bit as self-evident, and one that lies right at the heart of this debate.

Let’s build up to it from the foundation. Can the sword be used to enforce any laws whatever? Can a particular standard of behavior be required of a population, and with civil penalties attached for disobedience? The answer to this is clearly yes. We do not require the laws to be enforced as a means of giving cops exercise.

So yes. Laws enforced by the sword can be used to impose something.

This leads to the second question. Can the sword be used to impose unrighteous standards? Did Pol Pot enforce unrighteous standards in Cambodia between 1976 and 1978? The answer there is yes. Can the sword be used to impose righteous standards? Did the British use their naval power between 1807 and 1860 to capture approximately 1600 vessels and set free around 150,000 slaves? And did they effectively suppress the international slave trade? Again yes. Did they do it with nerf bats? No to that question. They used military power.

Doug Wilson, “On Making the Sword Righteous” on Blog and Mablog

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