formation

Nathan Finn: On State Churches and Religious Liberty

Christ and Culture Podcast | April 28, 2023
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In the Christ and Culture podcast with Ken Keathley and Benjamin Quinn, we explore how the Christian faith intersects all avenues of today’s culture through conversations with leading thinkers.

Today’s Episode:

What have Baptists believed about religious liberty, and how ought we to think about it now? Dr. Nathan Finn joins us to talk about state churches, patriotism, spiritual formation, and Christian nationalism. The conversation was recorded after Dr. Finn’s Carver-Barnes Lecture, “Against ‘Establishmentarian’ Baptist Political Theology.”

Also, in “Headlines” Dr. Christy Thornton discusses the coronation — and why it gives her “the heebie jeebies.” And in “On My Bookshelf,” Dr. Thornton recommends a classic book on believers baptism from George Beasley-Murray.

Timestamps:

  • “Headlines” on coronation day (1:23)
  • “Christ & Culture Conversation” with Nathan Finn (8:00)
  • “On My Bookshelf” with Christy Thornton (33:35)
A state church doesn’t cultivate human flourishing.

Highlights:

  • “Patriotism is a virtue. Christians in American and Christians in other nations ought to have patriotic feelings, habits, and practices. That is a good thing.”
  • “Christians are very understandably frustrated that the Judeo-Christian ethical scaffolding… is crumbling around us. And we look at the rapidity that we’ve moved…. People are drawn to any sort of worldview or arrangement that they see as a godly, strategic response to all that, because that’s bad, that’s not biblical, that doesn’t foster authentic human flourishing, and frankly many of the people who affirm those things take a persecutorial posture towards Christians…. Christians are nervous, and they’re understandably nervous. I’m nervous. But as a Baptist, I don’t think the response to that nervousness is to say, ‘Well we’ve been wrong when we’ve argued for religious freedom for all people. So let’s forget about that.’”
  • “Christian nationalism is a notoriously difficult word to define.”
  • “A state church doesn’t cultivate human flourishing. That’s my narrow concern.”
  • “I don’t think a state church is the inevitable end of revival. I think a state church would be a sign of declension, not a sign of revival.”
  • “There is no New Testament mandate to Christianize nations.”
  • “Part of spiritual formation has to be formation for public witness.”
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All opinions and views expressed by guest speakers are solely their own. They do not speak for nor represent SEBTS. Read our expressed views and confessions.

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  • formation
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