John of Salisbury #2 (Teaching)

John of Salisbury's teachings on Christian nationalism are discussed in this transcription. The transcription argues that a return to true Christian nationalism, based on the Book of the Covenant in Exodus 20-24, is necessary to avoid God's wrath on America. John of Salisbury's Politocraticus, influenced by Thomas Beckett and ancient philosophers, introduced the concept of the body politic. However, the transcription criticizes John of Salisbury for separating church and state and elevating natural law above the authority of the word of God. It argues that any book on Christian nationalism that doesn't start with Exodus 20-24 is based on philosophical speculation. The transcription also discusses the importance of the book of the covenant and its laws in defining true Christian nationalism. It emphasizes the need for compassionate treatment of minorities and warns of the consequences of not following God's laws. The transcription concludes by mentioning the conflict between Beckett's c Hi John, this is number two for John of Salisbury, his teaching. So hello, welcome everybody to TheGreatBibleReset.com. This is Oliver Woods, and our theme is that the one and only thing that will deliver us from the wrath of God resting on America today is a return to true Christian nationalism, which is the Book of the Covenant found in Exodus 20-24, God's very first revelation to Moses. He summarized what it means to have a Christian nation or Christian nationalism. And if you aren't familiar with that passage, you can pick up our commentary in the bookstore at kingswayclassicalacademy.com. Now we find many of the errors of John of Salisbury in this current debate on Christian nationalism. John of Salisbury wrote Politocraticus in 1159, and it was the first book on medieval political theory, and heavily influenced by his associate Thomas Beckett, and ancient philosophers like Aristotle Cicero, the Justinian Code, and many others. But he was among the foremost philosophers of the so-called 12th century Renaissance, contributing to the development of political and moral philosophy, as well as the medieval theory of education, and to the dissemination of emerging Aristotelian learning. He introduced the two swords theory into separation of church and state, but he placed both swords under the church. Now, John was the first to apply this term body politic to the analogy of the human body, and he has thus been dubbed the father of modern political science. And even though he doesn't acknowledge the Bible in this instance, he was modeling after the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 12, 18, where Paul says, But now God has placed the members, each one of them in the body, just as he desired. And according to John of Salisbury, the head was the king, the heart was the legislature, and the soul was the church. The feet are the farmers and workers, and arms are the army. So prior to this time, throughout the Middle Ages, the Bible was revered, if not always obeyed, as the governing authority for all of life in both church and state. And these two were perceived as one united kingdom under God, with the state dominant. This was called Christendom. Now John of Salisbury changed all that by separating the two institutions formally and placing the civil magistrate under the church, in theory, in line with the teaching and struggle of his mentor, the martyred Thomas Beckett. So Politocraticus has been described as, quote, And that's from Gibbon on page 279, The Decline and Fall of Western Civilization. We might say that John of Salisbury was the first Christian nationalist. The problem is, any book on Christian nationalism, whether it's medieval or modern, that doesn't take Exodus 20-24 as its starting point, is little more than philosophical speculation, best based on indeterminate natural law and fallen human reasoning. For example, in Defense of Christian Nationalism, this new book, put out by Canon Press, the author states at the beginning, quote, Revealed theology serves to complete politics, but it is not the foundation. Instead of the word of God, the author believes that politics must rest on a combination of natural and supernatural propositions in order to, again, quote, To integrate natural and supernatural truths into a systematic political theory. And, folks, this is a direct attack on the authority of the word of God. It's happened over and over and over again in church history. And here we have it again, with Stephen Wolfe, in Defense of Christian Nationalism. Quote, Okay, what are natural principles? That's another word for natural law. He explains, quote, No, it doesn't, but that's what he says. And so what has he done there? He's elevated natural law above the authority of the revealed law of God. And this is about as far from theonomy and presuppositional apologetics as you can get. And so, by publishing this, Canon Press has forfeited the right to call itself or any of its representatives of theonomy or presuppositional apologetics. And if they try to get away with it, we need to call them on it. In other words, this author is saying that all Scripture is not sufficient for the man of God to be complete, thoroughly furnished for every good work, like 2 Timothy tells us. And 2 Timothy was written at a time when there was no New Testament. Quotify, he's referring to the Old Testament. But Wolfe is saying, don't worry, God, I've got you covered. I'm going to lay down a foundation of political theory based on my natural law, philosophical speculation, and my fallen human reason. And then, God, you can come in with your political theology and take over if you want to. It's not really necessary, but, you know, feel free. You know, the wolf is at the door once again. America's teetering on the brink of tumbling off the cliff into the abyss of God's judgment. We can't afford to waste any more time on what amounts to philosophical mumbo jumbo. Because we've been down this rabbit hole so many times before in the last 2,000 years. Look at Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy. Look at St. Augustine in his Confessions. He constantly refers to the Neoplatonic chain of being in order to persuade Neoplatonists. The one at the top supposedly relates to God. The noose supposedly is Jesus. And then under that is archangels, angels, demons, the soul of man, and then the material world. And what did that give us? A thousand years of Platonic withdrawal from the world into hermitages, hermits, stylites on top of poles, monasteries, you name it. A thousand years. Because Augustine used this natural law philosophy to defend the faith. God never says, oh my people, return to natural law philosophy and be healed. Romans 1 is talking about natural revelation. It has nothing to do with natural law or natural theology. This is our great error. Natural revelation. Any basic theology course will tell you. Natural revelation tells us it's vague. It's powerful, but it's vague. It tells us of God's power, maybe his love, but certainly his judgment, and his wrath. The thunderstorm and so forth. The voice of God is powerful. But if we take it beyond that and try to articulate it, try to defend the Bible in terms of natural law or natural theology, or take it any further, based on our own human reason, we've just elevated our own human reason and natural law above the law of God. And that's happened over and over and over throughout church history. And here we're doing it again. Canon Press, of all people, is doing this. We need to call them on it. Because both of these are a sham. Natural law and natural theology. We need to be reasoning from the word of God. Not man-made speculations. Not Justinian's law. Not Stephen Wolfe's law. We're supposed to be thinking God's thoughts after him. Not Stephen Wolfe's thoughts after him. Contrary to John of Salisbury, in current books on Christian nationalism, God demands a full-blown return to his law in the book of the covenant and nothing else. Now, if you've never heard of the book of the covenant, it's really not your fault because it's never preached. Although, you should have figured it out on your own by this time. If you've never heard of the book of the covenant, Exodus 20-24, it means you're a victim of psychobabble being spewed from the typical American pulpit and the Christian press. Exodus 20 is the Ten Commandments. It's followed by three chapters of ordinances. And then one chapter of national covenant commitment to the book of the covenant. And in chapter 24, God actually ties these two things together. He tells the ten words and then what he calls the ordinances. And he says this is the book of the covenant. You can't take the Ten Commandments and throw out the ordinances. You can't do it because God says they're one book. They're a unit. And together they define true Christian nationalism according to God. So, most of these laws have a penalty in Exodus 21-23, the ordinance section, indicating that a violation is a crime, not just a sin. But it's noteworthy that near the end of this section, there's a section of injunctions that are not accompanied by a penalty but have to do with everyday cultural interaction. And they're delineated by two bookends or two verses. Each verse has the words oppress and stranger. So, they're like bookends. And they have to do with compassionate treatment of the minority or the stranger in a Christian republic. And so, it deals with this accusation that, well, the non-Christians are going to be oppressed. Well, they're not supposed to be oppressed according to God. And if you do oppress them, there's no penalties attached, civil penalties. But God is very blunt where he says, I will kill you with the sword. And your wives will be fatherless, husbandless, and so forth. For example, don't follow a multitude in doing evil. It's not a crime. It's just an injunction, a command. Then there's no penalty, no civil penalty. Or helping your enemy free up his donkey. There's this good Samaritan, right? No crime, no penalty. But God says, if you don't do this as a culture, ultimately your culture is going to be, I'll kill it. I'll kill your culture or I'll kill you. So, this was a contest between Beckett's church canon law and the royal common law of Henry II. Henry is known as the father of the common law based on custom and church precedent with very little Bible. And he's known for his temper tantrums. On occasion he would throw himself on the floor in a fit of rage. Right there in the courtroom. And he would excuse it as a king's expression of the wrath of God. In one such instance in 1170, he blurted out, quote, who will deliver me from the insolence of this low born monk? End of quote. And four of Henry's knights took him seriously. They led out on horseback to Canterbury Cathedral where they violated the divine sanctuary to brutally murder Beckett on the threshold. And you may recall from last time how Beckett resisted the king's efforts to try church officers under the royal law. And his martyrdom gave the church a temporary victory. But it wasn't long before the secular civil magistrate was launching out on his own, developing a whole multitude of secular law codes that plague us to this very day. Because they did not reconcile at Canossa. But after John of Salisbury, church and state were viewed as separate institutions vying against each other for ultimate authority. John provided a philosophical justification for the papal revolution of 1075 to 1122. There was no great Bible reset here, folks, ratified by a covenant. Finding them together and cooperating together, church and state, to lead the society in obedience to God as modeled in the Old Testament. This was radical separation of church and state that plagues us to this very day. Today's church leaders have no inclination or sense of obligation to involve themselves with the civil magistrate or hold the magistrate accountable to the law of God or assist in the courtroom, such as we see over and over again in the Old Testament. Every king in the Old Testament had a priest or a prophet kind of looking over his shoulder, keeping tabs to encourage, exhort, and occasionally rebuke. Remember how the prophet Nathan risked his life to go in and rebuke David in this matter of Uriah the Hittite? In the New Testament, John the Baptist challenged Herod, as we see in Mark 6. But John of Salisbury reduced the authority of the Bible by making it just one voice among many, including Aristotle, Plato, Cicero, Virgil, Justinian's Code, and on and on. And so what it does, it leads to man-made laws such as the use of torture to extract confessions related to treason and the state stealing the inheritance of the children of men that are so convicted. And that's what John of Salisbury did. So this is part of the legacy of John of Salisbury, and we'll be getting into that in a lot more detail in the next week or so. So thank you so much for tuning in and listening today, and please visit the bookstore at kingswayclassicalacademy.com where you can get more detail about these things. And thanks for being here today, and we'll see you tomorrow. www.kingswayclassicalacademy.com