Welcome to blog and may blog from Dougwills.com. This audio is brought to you by Canon Press.

If you haven't heard, Canon just released a new book from Douglas Wilson called Refuting the New Atheists.

The so-called New Atheists have a great deal of moral indignation at all the evil in the world.

But as a apologist and theologian Douglas Wilson cheerfully points out, they have no moral basis for it whatsoever.

This book is a collection of all three Douglas Wilson's responses to the New Atheists, such as Letter from a Christian citizen written to Sam Harris,

God is in reply to Christopher Hitchens and the deluded atheist, a response to Richard Dawkins.

You can find this book at CanonPress.com.

Free speech in a Christian Theocracy May 24, 2021. Introduction.

One of the reasons why the question of free speech in a hypothetical Christian Republic is such an interesting topic is because it brings together all kinds of issues and presents them to us in a sizzling pan, a sort of corn beef hash with eggs and onions and exotic sauces all mixed up together.

And piping hot. Some of the taste sensations you might not have anticipated as going well together before you first tried it.

But they do go together. I'm talking about issues like God's Law and the Covenant of Grace, the relationship of Old Testament Law to modern society, the differences between sins and crimes, the central geopolitical genius move of Christianity, the actual charge given to us in a great commission and more.

But here's the bottom line issue. Can someone committed to the long term mission of the Christian Church, which is in fact a disciple all the nations of men, Matthew 28, 19 and 20, with the end result of that process being the obedience of all those same nations, be genuinely committed to a robust doctrine of free speech?

The answer to that question is yes, with no shucking or jiving. Another way of saying this is that theocratic libertarianism is not an oxymoron.

I was initially tempted to feel bad about the length of this post, but I've done two things that will help address any possible problems.

First, if you have other places to go, like Mulberry Street or other Dr. Seuss locations, why you still can, then you can just go back up to the top of this post, click on the show outline with links button, and go straight to the section entitled The Hinge Upon Which All Turns.

Read that section, and you will be up to speed. And then when everybody is talking excitedly about this post at work, you will be able to join in the discussion without having to admit that you are off watching videos of parakeets hopping around.

The second day I did to ameliorate any possible problems due to length was this. I made the prose extra-centilating, which comes from the Latin word for sparkly, and I did this by not stinting when it came to inserting extra-agic-tival joy.

Getting a few chuckles out of the way. I believe that when a Christian theocratic libertarian is challenged with regard to his free speech bonafides, the challenge is absolutely a legitimate one.

On paper there can appear to be serious tension between free speech on the one hand, and the biblical strictures against blasphemy on the other.

So I don't begrudge the questions, in fact I anticipate them, and ask a bunch of them below myself.

But what I do think is funny is when I am asked these questions by anyone who has ever been any part of the Wilkberg Gate.

We are living in a time of unremitting hostility to free speech, and the people who have declared open war on that free speech are those most likely to be supported by those Christians,

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