Does God Care? Christian Liberty and Food

In a sermon clip recently posted on CanonWired.com, renowned Reformed pastor Doug Wilson asserts, "The Triune God of Scripture doesn't care.  Bacon is fine. . . . Oysters are fine.  Refined sugar is fine.  Processed stuff made out of something that used to be like corn is fine . . . As far as God's concerned, Fairtrade coffee is fine, rip-off trade coffee is fine . . . God doesn't care what's on the plate, God cares what's in the heart."  This might at first seem strange to anyone familiar with much of Wilson's other teaching on theology and cultural issues, in which he is fond of saying that "theology should come out your fingertips" and insistent on applying Reformed Christianity to everything from teaching mathematics to dancing.  In fact, however, it represents but another installment in Wilson's ongoing crusade against the ethical food movement.  My point here, however, is not so much to directly engage Wilson on this issue, but to use this clip as an opportunity to reflect on what the doctrine of adiaphora and Christian liberty really means, and how it might afford clarity for us on this vexed topic. 

The doctrine of Christian liberty is commonly invoked in many contexts to tell Christians to bug off and stop being judgmental, not to lay down Pharisaical burdens beyond what God himself requires.  And often, there is a good reason for this.  Legalism is a perennial temptation, and many sectors of evangelical and Reformed churches are heavily weighed down by it.  And yet, we must always take care that the call not to be judgmental does not become an excuse not to exercise judgment.  The fact that God does not require something does not mean we can check our consciences at the door and any choice is as good as any other.  There is no escape from the need for moral thinking.  

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Some Natural Law Goodies

I'm finally back and ready to start revving up my blogging engines for a summer full of many words, tags, and comments; but if I may be excused for the moment in indulging in what may look like another cop-out, I'll use this post to point to some other interesting blog-posts that have just been written, which offer a good sketch of what the attempt to recover of a Reformational natural-law concept looks like, and suggest that Moscow, despite undeniable tensions and ambiguities, might not be too far off from it after all.  

See first Peter Leithart's post, "Augustine and Saeculum."

Then see a thoughtful interaction by Steven Wedgeworth, "Secular? Private? It All Depends What You Mean" (valuable especially for the comments section, where Wedgeworth seeks to clarify the traditional idea of natural law in defence against the knee-jerk antipathy to it that many of us have inherited).

And then Doug Wilson offers a helpful take on the idea of natural law with his typical gift for down-to-earth illustrations: "Natural Law and the Brownies."

I hope to offer my own take on all of this at some point soon (or this summer at any rate), so consider this for now just a bookmark.  

Doug Wilson on the Eighth Commandment

Any regular reader of Doug Wilson's Blog and Mablog may have been surprised, yea, dismayed to read my recent post "Thou Shalt Not Steal," not unreasonably (given some interactions with Wilson on the previous incarnation of this blog)  imagining it to be a direct attack on Wilson's post earlier this month, "Football Players or Pirates."  As it turns out, I just stumbled upon that post today, and can thus assure you that Wilson was in no way the target of my post, despite the remarkable parallels in what was discussed.  I have always thought that attacking someone publicly without naming them was rather worse than doing it openly, so that is certainly not what I was up to.  However, since some may have already noticed it, since the contradiction between our conclusions is quite striking, and since it affords me a good opportunity for reiterating the significant and relevant parts of my earlier post, I might as well interact explicitly with his post now.

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