Husbandry - Volume 13, Issue 6

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The Reformational Home

Douglas Wilson

In order for the continuing Revolution to succeed, our Christian households must be somehow neutralized by those who hate the Word of God. In previous eras, this has been accomplished by two basic means: persecution and subversion. Today, in other places around the globe, the Christian faith is being attacked overtly. Here in this nation, we are accustomed to believe we live in religious freedom. We think we are free from the tumult of battle because all we can hear are the whispers of those who are seducing us. Far from equipping Christian husbands and wives to resist such blandishments in the presence of the world, the modern evangelical church teaches us to unbutton the blouse just a little more. Our modern evangelical leaders want us to be seduced, which means they are a central part of the problem.

As you have read elsewhere in this issue, the Revolution is the ongoing attempt to establish the idolatry of demos, of man. Because it is fundamentally a theocratic faith that is being established, all the basic religious categories are involved. Every culture has a public faith—every culture has a god, a system of ethics, a form of atonement, a division between the righteous and the reprobate, and strictly enforced laws against blasphemy. If you doubt this last item, just try to say something like "homo behavior is hateful to God," the next time you are in a public forum. See what happens. We don't call them blasphemy laws, but rather hate crimes. But if you call your dog a cat, it still goes woof.

The issue is always this—not whether, but which. We do not have the choice of whether we shall have a lord, but rather which lord which shall have. It is not whether we shall have law, but which law, God's or man's. It is not whether we will trust in blood, but which blood we will trust in—the blood of Christ sprinkled on the heavenly altar, or the blood of innocents sprinkled on our altars of human choice, viz. those dumpsters out behind the clinics of choice. It is never whether but always which.

Now what does all this have to do with the family, with being a godly husband or wife?

Living in a Christian home which functions as it should is a subversive act. In a world with ethical division in it, in a world where some form of antithesis is inescapable, every worldview will have a way of attacking evil. The ungodly attack the "evil" of righteousness through the Revolution. The godly attack the evil of lawlessness through patient reformation. The subversion of Christians is always reformational, but we must never forget that it is always subversive.

Because the battle lines extend through every area of life, we must learn to see everything we do as part of that battle. Paul says, "whatever we do, whether we eat or drink, we are to do it to the glory of God." But we cannot forget that we live in a world at war over the question of whether we shall give glory to the God of Abraham or not. This means that when we give glory to God successfully, whether the activity in question is great or small, we have struck a blow in that battle. Pouring a bowl of Cheerioes for the kids in the right way is a reformational act. Being harsh or demanding with your wife is treachery which extends far beyond your relationship with her. So what are some basic issues where husbands should take care to defend their homes, and where they should prepare to counterattack first chance they get?

Covenant love: a covenant is larger than the individuals who make it. While human choice is obviously involved in the making of covenants, the biblical perspective sees those choices bringing a covenant into existence which outranks most subsequent choices. The ideology of our day says that individuals remain with other individuals through a process of perpetual choices, made end to end. And the choice can change as circumstances change. The scriptural approach chooses to take away a vast range of choices. The choice to love within the confines of a covenant is the choice to remove the lawful possibility of not loving.

Heterosexual fidelity: when a covenant man loves a woman, he is making a statement about Christ and the Church, the intransigent nature of sexual reality, the glory of headship and submission, the fruitfulness of doing what God says, and far more.

Generational hope: the fruit of a covenant union is far more than simply physical. Why did God make us one? Why did He bring us together in the first place? What was He seeking? The answer of Scripture is plain: He is seeking godly offspring, who, when they are grown, will do the same thing.