Friday, September 02, 2011

For the Un-Informed Keller of NYTimes

Keller, the editor of the NYTimes, has spread some foofoodust about Bachmann and "Dominionism."

Unfortunately, he's wrong on the facts.

First, Pearcey is not a Dominionist, a term that refers to a very tiny group of Reformed Protestant writers (who are more accurately called “Theonomists”) who advocate the institution of Old Testament law in American jurisprudence.

Second, Pearcey’s Total Truth is not a brief for theonomy or “being suspicious of ideas that come from non-Christians,” as Keller clumsily puts it. How do I know this? I have not only read the book, but I published a review of it seven years ago in First Things. Although I think she gets some things wrong, such as her take on St. Thomas Aquinas’ view of nature and grace, my overall opinion of the book is that it is a needed corrective to those who insist that theology has no cognitive content. (I would also part ways with her on Intelligent Design, which I critically assess in an article I published two years ago in the University of St. Thomas Journal of Law and Public Policy.

What Pearcey suggests to her readers is that the Christian should treat his beliefs seriously, and not as if they were merely matters of taste that we should keep out of public view, as Keller thinks we should (which, ironically, puts him in the position of being suspicious of ideas that come from Christians, just as one would expect from a secular gnostic).

(Lotsa links edited out of the above).

Keller presumes that his intellect and weltanschauung trump everything. 

Wrong.

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