Baird’s reply to my review essay of King of Kings repeats several of the claims he made in the book, and in doing so he reaffirms their validity. Because Baird had even less space for his reply than he had in his short book, his elaboration of points already made suffers once again from failure to develop contested points in detail. For instance, in defending his deduction that “Government must promote Christianity as the only true religion,” Baird does not seem to appreciate the gap between one of his premises, Christianity as “part of the public good,” and Christianity “as the only true religion.” Why would Christianity, the only true religion, be reduced to merely “part” of the public good if God’s Word reveals “all things necessary for his own glory, man’s salvation, faith and life” (Westminster Confession of Faith 1.6)? Why, too, does Baird not see that limiting Christianity to “part of the public good” leaves room for other religions to make up the difference? Perhaps this author is deficient in logic to see the plausibility of Baird’s syllogism, but some math education can alert careful readers to the difference between “parts” and “the whole” (implied by language of “the only true religion”).

Difficulties in logic aside, the biggest difference between Baird and critics of his proposal for government promoting Christianity (along with other advocates of Christian nationalism) is the authority of history. The idea that Christians in the past who were right about theology and worship should also provide the norm for contemporary politics gives much vigor to those Protestants who propose a return to Christian government to overcome the dangers and weaknesses of liberal democratic (and secular) polities. This notion also becomes something of a stick with which to poke critics of Christian nationalism. It can lead to the charge that critics have not “done the reading” of older Reformed and Presbyterian sources. Worse, it can lead to the charge of infidelity because departing from the likes of John Calvin, John Knox, Samuel Rutherford, or even (if you really want to prove you have done the reading) Johannes Althusius on the nature of government is to have abandoned the Reformed tradition. When critics bring up the actual steps that Presbyterians took to readjust the Westminster Confession to modern society (e.g., the American revisions), responses invariably deny the revisions by finding other parts of the Standards (especially the Larger Catechism) that were not changed. The extent of the revisions aside, proponents of Christian government (or Christian nationalism) do not acknowledge that the political theology of Reformed and Presbyterian communions before 1789 was incompatible with the new form of politics that came to dominate the modern West after the American and French Revolutions (we should also throw in the Glorious Revolution of 1688/1689). Baird has not made the revisions to the Confession of Faith an important part of his book or reply to the review essay. The reason for bringing it up is to highlight discontinuity between Reformed Protestants on the nature of the civil magistrate before and after 1789. The sense of discontinuity is something that not only twenty-first-century Presbyterians feel.

Simply repeating what Reformed theologians asserted prior to the American Revolution ignores the political changes that occurred when the West moved from a Christendom model of government (Protestant or Roman Catholic) to one that reduced Christianity’s place in the administration of civil law, finance, education, health care, family policy, and requirements for holding office (among many others). Modern societies in the West do not operate the way they did during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Baird may legitimately claim that this is precisely the problem. He might say we should go back to Edinburgh of 1615 because contemporary societies are afflicted with any number of un-Christian policies and behaviors that prove the weakness of liberal democratic government. Missing from the complaint is any admission that the so-called Christian societies of sixteenth and seventeenth-century Europe also labored with problems, sometimes committed in the name of Christ, that liberal democratic politics were designed to remedy. Perhaps math could help calculate which society’s problems were or are greater. Either way, theology should be at the ready to remind the calculator that no society this side of glory will be free of problems. (Just consider the reign of the Lord’s anointed, King David, maybe the greatest “Christian prince” ever.)

Appealing to the past is a point of debate that not only applies to pre- and post-1789 but also to 1925, the year when the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. started on its irrevocable slide to heterodoxy. With the exception of Baird’s appeal to John Murray’s commentary on Romans, he never seems to quote from American Presbyterians who formed the OPC and the PCA, that is, from twentieth-century American Presbyterians who opposed the Christian government and policies promoted by mainline Protestant leaders and Progressive government officials (such as the Presbyterian Woodrow Wilson). Even Baird’s appeal to Murray is nowhere near as clear as he seems to think. When Murray writes that “the good the magistrate promotes is that which subserves the interest of piety,” he is not ipso-facto proposing the institution of Christian government. Murray very well could be arguing that a form of government that allows families, churches, and private associations to run institutions and nurture activities that promote Christian piety—a government that stays out of the way of citizens’ private lives—could be the best for promoting true religion. Neither Baird nor this author has the decoder ring to determine Murray’s own preference for government.

Aside from Murray, what if Baird had included J. Gresham Machen in the sources when he was doing the reading of Reformed political theory? For instance, Machen was suspicious of using religion to support the public good (in his day the religion would have been liberal Protestantism):

There is the problem of the immigrants; great populations have found a place in our country; they do not speak our language or know our customs; and we do not know what to do with them. We have attacked them by oppressive legislation or proposals of legislation, but such measures have not been altogether effective. . . . we are perplexed in our efforts to produce a unified American people. So religion is called in to help; we are inclined to proceed against the immigrants now with a Bible in one hand and a club in the other offering them the blessings of liberty. That is what is sometimes meant by “Christian Americanization.”[1]

Besides immigration, Machen noticed that American officials were turning to Christianity for help with industrial relations and international peace. The problem, however, was that a utilitarian appropriation of Christianity “degraded and destroyed” the gospel or used it “as a mere means to a higher end.”[2]

Another subject where Baird and Machen do not align is whether to pass legislation that supports Christian morality. Baird has sometimes considered re-instituting Blue Laws or blasphemy prohibitions as ways to promote the public good. That was similar to the rationale for Prohibition, which outlawed the sale and distribution of alcoholic beverages. Machen cast a vote against a motion at presbytery that called for the church to support the Eighteenth Amendment, a decision that cost him a promotion at Princeton Seminary.[3] When he explained his vote, Machen questioned precisely whether Christianity could legitimately be promoted by the coercive powers of government. He wrote that,

in making of itself . . . in so many instances primarily an agency of law enforcement, and thus engaging in the duties of the police, the church . . . is in danger of losing sight of its proper function which is that of bringing to bear upon human souls the sweet and gracious influences of the gospel.[4]

Machen’s dissent from the ranks of Christian nationalists in his day was also evident when he advocated religious liberty, not just for Protestants but also for Roman Catholics and Jews. Progressive policies designed to create conformity and advance the public good were responsible for legislation that dictated what private schools could teach. Machen hoped that “Jews and Christians, Roman Catholics and Protestants,” if “they are lovers of liberty,” might form a “united front” against such tyrannical government. He also asserted that he was “an inveterate propagandist” and that he desired the “same right of propaganda” for others. “People object to the Roman Catholics . . . because they engage in ‘propaganda,’” he wrote, but clearly they had “a right to do so, and clearly we have a right to do the same.”[5]

Machen was by the standards of the Religious Right a liberal and obviously looked at government differently from today’s Christian nationalists. Even aside from his politics which opposed the progressive policies of his day, Machen’s understanding of the church and its commission to proclaim the gospel and shepherd members was many steps removed from seeking to advance Christianity through government.

None of this means that Baird or defenders of Christian nationalism must agree with Machen (though it would help if they did the reading of Machen). What differences between Baird’s political theology and Machen’s do indicate is that the former seems to be unaware of two aspects of American Presbyterianism. First, he has not spent time reading Machen or tried to show where the conservative Presbyterian was wrong. Second, Baird has not considered the context in which he is writing. The latter neglect is especially important since Baird’s communion, the PCA, and its denominational sister, the OPC, came out of Presbyterian denominations that were in many respects proposing what he advocates—namely, using government to support a public good defined by Christian morality. Not reading Machen is one thing. Not understanding the controversies that led conservative Presbyterians to leave Presbyterian churches committed to the social gospel is another.

One way of reading Baird, then, is as a nostalgist (someone who indulges in nostalgia), an odd trait for a Millennial (Boomers are supposed to be nostalgic). He would have contemporary Presbyterians turn the clock back before both Machen and the American revision of the Westminster Confession to a time when Protestants lived under governments that controlled morality and the church. Going back in time is impossible. But the relatively simple way in which Baird invokes Reformed theologians from the past is radical because it means wiping away at least a century of human history. The biggest problem of King of Kings is adding to the growing discontent with our fragile political order. If frustrations with the American system of government lead to its downfall, the civil liberties of a group of conservative Presbyterians (and Baptists) who make up less than one percent of the population may be the first to go.

Endhotes

[1] J. Gresham Machen, Christianity and Liberalism (Macmillan, 1923), 149.

[2] Machen, Christianity and Liberalism, 150.

[3] On the background to Machen’s vote and its consequences for his promotion at Princeton, see D. G. Hart, Defending the Faith: J. Gresham Machen and the Crisis of Conservative Protestantism in Modern America (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994), ch. 5.

[4] J. Gresham Machen, “Statement on the Eighteenth Amendment,” in J. Gresham Machen: Selected Shorter Writings, ed. D.G. Hart (P&R, 2004), 395.

[5] J. Gresham Machen, “Relations between Christians and Jews,” in Machen: Selected Shorter Writings, 419.

Darryl G. Hart is distinguished professor of history at Hillsdale College in Hillsdale, Michigan, and serves as an elder at Hillsdale Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Hillsdale, Michigan and as a member of the Committee on Christian Education. Ordained Servant Online, June, 2026