God, Law & Liberty Podcast

Today we will examine two questions suggested by a Senior Fellow for Biblical Worldview at a national political and policy organization to determine, according to him, "Who is actually a Christian" and "Who is on our team." Abraham Kuyper provided a critique to the two suggested questions, but the Apostle Paul provided the one question we really need to ask. Today's episode may explain why policy...

Today, David looks at a recent statement by a Christian pro-family policy organization on military fitness standards to see what arguments complementarian thinking about men and women leaves Christians with when it comes to women in combat. Complementarian thinking is the "in" word for political conservatives when addressing the male-female "divide," but is that a Christ-denying capitulation? Davi...

Today, David resumes his consideration of whether philosophical reasoning can be the way to get back to a Christian view of law. Its limits, he explains, are demonstrated when the question is whether women should fight in combat roles. David explains why the prevalence of complementarian thinking in Christian circles can’t answer this question and offers an answer he believes Scripture provi...

Special Edition: WHY is "free speech" so important, beyond just saying it is or “it’s in the Constitution"“ And WHY did Jesus say (Matt. 12:37) "For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned." Here's my 4 minute stab at answering these "why" questions. Support the show: https://www.factennessee.org/donate See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy...

I started not to post today, because I needed “time off” to process the assassination of Charlie Kirk before continuing on the topic I proposed at the conclusion of last week’s episode: Is reason the way forward in law. But what came to mind this morning is too important in view of all the talk in media about needing a new way forward. Today, I ask and answer why logical reasonin...

This is a four minute audio response to Senator Kaine’s comments about human rights that I pray honors God, and that Charlie Kirk would applaud. I actually recorded it earlier this week, but it seems appropriate today because the issue of rights will now swirl around Kirk’s work and assassination. It is what I would say if I were a United States senator having a platform to respond to...

Increasingly, Christians offer a return to the philosophical reasoning of the ancients as the way forward in addressing public policies that put at issue what it means to be human. Getting back on the right road, as C.S. Lewis put it, toward the consideration of human meaning is necessary. But how does the eschatology of a Christian view of law apply to philosophical reasoning as the way forward?...

Law is inherently eschatological. Today I explain why that is so, the eschatology that now informs society and law and why, and the practical implications of that seemingly heady and "theological" topic in law. Support the show: https://www.factennessee.org/donate See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Today’s short episode is a “supplement” to this coming Friday’s episode on the eschatological implications of briefs filed by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Ethics and Public Policy Center with SCOTUS on transgenderism. Would you encourage or discourage the legislator argument I offer in today’s episode about women in the military? Remember:...

Certain aspects of the Christian view of law found in Romans 7:14 were broached in two briefs filed with the United States Supreme Court! Today, David discusses those briefs along with what he appreciated and what he would have done differently.  Along the way, he explains how Christology and Christian eschatology inform his analysis. Support the show: https://www.factennessee.org/donate See...

Christians should give thanks for a “Christian” outcome in a judicial dispute over a particular parental right, but I believe that is not enough. I believe the end or telos of a Christian view of law would strive to restore in law parental rights as an authority delegated by God with a prescribed jurisdiction give for certain ends—”godly offspring” (Malachi 2:15). Tod...

Today, David explains why “parental rights” is now just a power game, and gives examples of Christian legal and policy advocates effectively conceding that the determinative power over what those rights are rests with a U.S. Supreme Court that has embraced a lawless, disintegrated cosmos. He also briefly summarizes what Christians must do to restore real and objectively determinable pa...

Today, David explains how Christianity succumbed to the cosmological revolution of Kant and Nietzsche, the specific adoption of that cosmology by the U.S. Supreme Court, and the secret to a launching a successful Christ-centered counter-revolution. But, he says, it won't begin so long as Christians lawyers and policy makers put their faith in being able to manipulate to their immediate advantage U...

Today’s episode provides a brief historical snapshot to show how the US. Supreme Court now thinks of "marriage" in relation to the law, how it used to think of that relation, and how Christ specifically informed that law less than 200 years ago. Seeing the transition from a Christian view of law will be shocking, as it once was to me. But the past provides a baseline for measuring a return t...

Today David looks at how today’s “climate of opinion” can cause Christians to be deceived into thinking Christian lawyers and legislators are employing a Christian view of law. It will also help us see that Christians unjustifiably thought progress toward a Christian worldview was being made when, on June 18th, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of Tennessee&rsqu...

If a Christian view of law is spiritual and covenantal, what does that look like when arguing before the United States Supreme Court? Today, David looks at the approaches taken by two different Christian camps in United States v. Skrmetti that addressed the constitutionality of Tennessee’s law prohibiting medical treatments for a minor’s gender dysphoria. The two approaches represent t...

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 e...

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. Support the show: https://www.factennessee.org/donate See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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 awak...

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 engag...

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. Support th...

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.” Support the show: https://www.factennessee.org...

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? Support the...

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...

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 li...