Hello, fellow wayfarers … Why you should care not just about whether to deport Venezuelan gang members but also about how we do it … What matters about whether your calling is motivated by love or fear … How to lead through lament … A Desert Island Playlist from Boise … This is this week’s Moore to the Point.
Why American Christians Ought to Care About How Venezuelan Gang Members Are Deported
We should deport Venezuelan gang members and any other criminals who are illegally in this country. American Christians should not, and probably do not, object to that policy.
As Christians, we recognize that the most basic biblical justification for the existence of a state includes that state’s responsibility to uphold the law and protect its citizenry (Rom. 13:1–5).
And as Americans, we can see that our founders built into the constitutional republic of which we are a part the means for our government to do just that, to make sure the laws are faithfully executed. That means prosecuting dangerous criminals and sending those who are here illegally out of the country.
The what of that kind of deportation shouldn’t be in question, nor should the why. We ought, though, as both Christians and Americans, to recognize that we should also care about the how.
What alarmed me about the recent reports of the sweeping deportations of alleged members of the infamous Tren de Aragua was not that they were arrested or deported, nor was it, at first, about the questions of due process for these alleged criminals. Law enforcement is often charged with violating due process in some way or another, and usually these charges are met with government agents arguing why, on the basis of the law, they have the right to act as they did.
To some extent, that’s what White House border czar Tom Homan did when pressed by reporters as to whether the executive branch has the powers it is claiming under the Alien Enemies Act to deport these alleged offenders to an El Salvadorian prison. He said they do, and would fight for that right in court. That’s perfectly appropriate, and that kind of question is what courts were meant to discern.
What concerned me was what Homan said next.
To ABC News’ This Week, Homan responded to a question about due process with, “Where was Laken Riley’s due process? Where were all these young women that were killed and raped by members of TDA—where was their due process? … How about the young lady burned in that subway—where was her due process?”
Laken Riley, of course, was the nursing student murdered by an illegal immigrant. The cases Homan mentioned are all criminal and should be morally outrageous to any functioning conscience. The rhetoric here, however, confuses categories in ways that could have implications for much bigger questions of the size and scope of the state.
If your neighbor is apprehended by the police for running a meth lab in her basement, that arrest is a good thing. You don’t want to live in a society where laws against drug running are ignored by the authorities. Unless you are watching a Breaking Bad rerun, you probably won’t have any sympathy for meth dealers, nor should you.
But what if your neighbor’s meth lab is found not by suspicion of criminal activity, followed by a legal investigation of it, but by the fact that the government has installed secret surveillance cameras in every house?
If you object to this kind of unlawful spying without a warrant, someone might say, “What about the meth dealers we arrested? Are you pro-meth?”
Of course you’re not pro-meth or pro-murder. Your objection to a police state would be an objection to the government not following the law, even if the government’s lawbreaking led to some good results. In that, you would be recognizing one of the best aspects of liberal democracy: the idea that a people must give attention not just to lawful ends but also to lawful means, that what matters is not just what results we get but how we get them.
Most of us take for granted that this system is just the way things have always worked. Some, such as journalist Jonah Goldberg, have argued for years that we ought to recognize what a miracle this kind of project is—a nation that operates not out of bonds of tribal loyalty but according to a system of laws accountable to the people, one that even protects the rights of the minority when the democratic majority wants to oppress them.
One very secular proponent of liberal democracy and constitutional republicanism argues that this “miracle” can be traced to at least one very unlikely source: Calvinism.
Francis Fukuyama wrote in 2017 that most of his fellow secularists discount the importance of the Protestant Reformation in the emergence of the modern state and that the Lutheran and Calvinist wings of the Reformation both contributed to the order we now take for granted.
Lutheranism added fire to the drive for mass literacy by encouraging the reading of the Bible by the laity. And in a later interview, Fukuyama said it was Calvinism’s “austere personal morality” that was crucial for eliminating corruption, especially “in the founding of modern bureaucracies in the Netherlands, in Prussia, in England, and in the United States.”
Fukuyama was not suggesting that Calvinism itself was (small l) liberal or (small d) democratic. Anabaptists—as they were fleeing Switzerland under threat of drowning by Calvinist magistrates for refusing to baptize their babies—would know that, as would Michael Servetus as he was led to the pyre for heresy.
Instead, Fukuyama argued that the kind of personal morality Calvinism emphasized ultimately led to something unnatural: an impersonal state. He continued:
I think in the end that corruption is a very natural thing. You want to help your friends, and you want to help your family. This idea that you should be impersonal and not steal on behalf of your friends or your family doesn’t occur to anyone unless they’re forced to do it. Calvinism imposed a kind of morality on its believers that was conducive to a strict order, in which you could tell bureaucrats that this is really wrong. Unless you internalize those rules, no amount of external surveillance is going to make people really honest.
Fukuyama is partially right. The “friend-enemy distinction” is indeed natural in this fallen universe east of Eden. That’s why, if we base our ethics, politics, or culture on nature, we will end up with something akin to the law of the jungle: those with the most guns or tanks win, and everyone else is subjugated.
That leads, by definition, to an unlimited and unrestricted state. It leads, and usually quickly, to a rule by bribery and intimidation in which criminality is defined not by what one does but by who one knows.
Only if one thinks there is something to which even the state is ultimately accountable—to a moral order that is about more than just who has the most votes—can one have a state that is in any way limited.
As Americans, we ought to care about the how and not just the what of any government action because we believe there’s a Constitution by which even the most popular notion must be constrained. As Christians, we ought to care about the means as well as the ends because we believe that rendering unto Caesar does not include recognizing Caesar as a god.
Venezuelan gangsters, Danish money launderers, Romanian human traffickers—we should prosecute them all, and remove from the country those who are here illegally.
But we ought to care how we do it. A liberal democracy slows down a lot of things we might like to do, but we will miss it when it’s gone. The rule of law is fallible, but it’s a good idea—one we can’t afford to deport.
Your Work Can Be Motivated by Love or Fear
Lots of people ask me about work.
Some want to know how to discern what their “vocation” should be. Some hate their jobs and want to know whether they are just experiencing a common frustration or if they should quit and do something else. Others really love their jobs and want to know whether they love their careers too much so that they are neglecting other things in life.
Not many people ask me, though, about what’s behind all of that—what motivates their callings. That’s been on my mind this week as I’ve pondered a line in a new book.
The book is Ben Palpant’s An Axe for the Frozen Sea: Conversations with Poets About What Matters Most (Rabbit Room Press), in which he interviews the Christian poet Robert Cording. Cording makes the point that the idea of workmanship concerns itself with the competing motivations involved in any kind of calling or creation.
I was not surprised to see a poet asked about the biblical concept of workmanship. Anyone who has ever heard a sermon or a Bible study lesson on Ephesians 2:10—“For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them” (NKJV)—has probably heard some reference to the similarity between the Greek word ποίημα (poiēma) and the English word poem.
In fact, the analogy is not as simple as that. As New Testament scholar Frank Thielman points out in his commentary on Ephesians, the word can mean “poem” but can also mean “artifact” or “literary production in prose” or even something as simple as “what is done.” What surprised me, however, was the way Cording moved beyond the analogy to something really important that often goes unexplored.
Creativity is not in and of itself a good thing, Cording argues, nor does it necessarily point us Godward. He gives two biblical examples of artisanship with two divergent motivations and two divergent outcomes, saying, “When Moses climbed the mountain to receive the Ten Commandments, the Israelites made a golden calf. They made it because they were afraid. But when God tells them to make the Ark of the Covenant, they make it out of love.”
Cording is right. The golden calf was not a museum piece but an act of self-protection. Moses was gone, and the people told Aaron, “We do not know what has become of him.” Headed into an uncertain future filled with enemies and obstacles, they wanted “gods who shall go before us” (Ex. 32:1, ESV throughout).
The calf was creative, both in its depiction of the natural world and in the symbolism of its being constructed from gold plundered from the Egyptians from whom the Israelites were fleeing.
But after Moses destroyed the idol, God commanded a very different creative project—a box (Deut. 10:1–5).
Like the calf, the ark required volunteered contributions of gold along with other raw materials from the people. But unlike the calf, the ark came from those attuned to the mind of God.
Bezalel, for instance, was filled “with the Spirt of God, with ability and intelligence, with knowledge and all craftmanship, to devise artistic designs, to work in gold, silver, and bronze, in cutting stones for setting, and in carving wood, to work in every craft” (Ex. 31:3–5).
The calf was a way to seek to force a god to be in their midst—creativity from a place of fear. The ark was a response to a God already in their midst—creativity from a place of love.
How to Lead Through Lament
This week on the podcast, I talked to my friend Mark Vroegop, the newly elected president of The Gospel Coalition. Mark served as lead pastor of College Park Church in Indianapolis and has written several books, including Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy: Discovering the Grace of Lament (Crossway).
We talk about how the Psalms taught him how to grieve and lament without giving over to despair or cynicism. We also talk about how to make vocational decisions and how to make deep, meaningful friendships.
You can listen here.
Desert island Playlist
Every other week, I share a playlist of songs one of you says you’d want to have on hand if you were stranded on a desert island. This week’s submission comes from reader John Erisman from Boise, Idaho. Here’s his list:
- “One Fine Day” by David Wilcox
- “Needed Time” by Eric Bibb
- “Your Lovin’ Hobo” by Jesse Colin Young
- “Worried Mind” by Ray Charles
- “Till I Gain Control Again” by Van Morrison
- “Whippoorwill” by Greg Brown
- “Somebody Pick Up My Pieces” by Willie Nelson
- “Ev’ry Time (When We Are Gone)” by Tom Paxton
- “Colours of Mercy” by the Tord Gustavsen Trio
- “You Who Knew Me” by David Wilcox
- “You Can’t Go Home Again” by Chet Baker
- “Sunday Morning Coming Down” by Kris Kristofferson
Thank you, John!
Readers, what do y’all think? If you were stranded on a desert island for the rest of your life and could have only one playlist or one bookshelf with you, what songs or books would you choose?
- For a Desert Island Playlist, send me a list between 5 and 12 songs, excluding hymns and worship songs. (We’ll cover those later.)
- For a Desert Island Bookshelf, send me a list of up to 12 books, along with a photo of all the books together.
Send your list (or both lists) to questions@russellmoore.com, and include as much or as little explanation of your choices as you would like, along with the city and state from which you’re writing.
Quote of the Moment
“We have a tendency, of course, to say the words of a creed mindlessly, but the most familiar words would shake us if we were to understand them. The worshiper who says, ‘I believe in Jesus Christ,’ is really saying that the story termed the Incarnation presents the truth as abstraction can never do. To believe in Christ is to believe that God is like Him, and that is to believe that suffering love rather than sheer power stands at the center of all reality.”
—Elton Trueblood, A Place to Stand
Currently Reading (or Re-Reading)
- Charlotte Wood, Stone Yard Devotional (Riverhead)
- Susan Morrison, Lorne: The Man Who Invented Saturday Night Live (Random House)
- Karl Ove Knausgaard, The Wolves of Eternity, trans. Martin Aitken (Penguin)
- Victor Serge, Memoirs of a Revolutionary, trans. Peter Sedgwick with George Paizis (New York Review Books)
- After the End of History: Conversations with Francis Fukuyama, ed. Mathilde Fasting, (Georgetown University Press)
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Russell Moore
Editor in Chief, Christianity Today
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