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Reformed Christian Politics
The book’s main thesis is that: Civil government must promote true religion. Written by three American Presbyterians (two ministers and a layman), the book outlines Reformed political theory in general, before guiding the reader through the doctrine of the civil magistrate in a specifically American context, with the American revisions to the Westminster Confession of Faith examined along with the writings of 18th- and 19th-century American Presbyterians. This volume addresses theonomy and how to handle the law of Moses in terms of politics, as well as giving a summary of Stephen Wolfe’s previous book, The Case for Christian Nationalism.
296 pages, Paperback
Published March 24, 2026
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May 14, 2026Website. PDF of the Introduction available here. Review at PCA Polity.
See Wolfe's book here.
See Wolfe's book here.
April 27, 2026
Wolfe, Garris, and McGowan have in this work contributed something of immense value in the recovery of Reformed political theory. While theirs is a decidedly Presbyterian perspective, American Christians of all denominations will find their insights and historical retrieval helpful. This book may serve as an excellent starting point for Christians (elders and laymen alike) who see that something is off in the political theology of current evangelical elites, who wish to discover what their physical and spiritual forebears had to say on the subject, and who then wish to (re)construct a coherent system of Reformed Christian politics for the good of their children and nation.
There are several points in the book that this reader found especially enlightening.
First, from Chapter One:
This is the first time I've understood the distinction between ethics and politics, the former directing interactions between individuals, the latter interactions between the collective citizens of a civil society. The conflation of ethics and politics is perhaps the number one reason evangelicalism's conception of politics is muddled, incoherent, and seems to demand the national suicide of the American people under the banner of "neighbor love." Yet contrary to modern liberal assertions, most of the commands of Jesus in the Gospels pertain to the realm of ethics, and are not meant to translate one-to-one to the formulation of laws.
From Chapter Three:
Modern Reformed Christians have been taught that the differences between the 1788 WCF and 1646 WCF on the topic of the civil magistrate are fundamental. Kevin DeYoung has been a popular force in this regard, seeking to convince evangelicals that the American Reformed tradition departs from the essence of its spiritual forbears in the realm of church and state relations. What Garris demonstrates is that such differences are not evidence of essentially differing conceptions of church and state. Rather, what the 1646 WCF stated as mandatory for civil magistrates, the 1788 WCF stated as permissible but not mandatory. This owed not to differing conceptions of the civil magistrate in principle, but accounted for a differing American context where a kind of pan-Protestantism made such obligations of the civil magistrate imprudent in practice, not impermissible in principle.
From Chapter Six: R2K (modern "Reformed" Two Kingdoms) is a new political ideology that has become alarmingly widespread among Reformed thinkers, built upon a novel, and faulty, interpretation of the Noahic covenant. It seeks to delineate the civil and churchly kingdoms such that conclusions such as, "God requires government officials to protect your right to publicly blaspheme Him" become sacrosanct, just as morally binding as the commands of Scripture themselves. Garris well demonstrates the inanity and incoherence of this system of belief, as well as evidencing how foreign it is to the Reformed tradition.
Overall, there is a further benefit to this book. It is to the evangelical as medicine is to the sick patient. It reveals, and then sets about remedying, some glaring deficiencies of contemporary evangelicalism. Namely, evangelicals largely possess a reactionary faith. Our beliefs, especially in the realm of politics, are entirely unmoored from a fixed set of principles, and instead drift listlessly on the sea of ever-changing public discourse and propagandized news cycles. Tim Keller's popular "Third Way-ism" best exemplifies this, but the phenomenon is not limited to him. Such evangelicals are defined in the negative, that is, by what they don't believe on a given topic, while the actual principles informing their stated beliefs themselves go unstated. Indeed, evangelicals often don't know the very beliefs which inform their political stances. Take the issue of immigration. Countless evangelicals, rather than having any coherent principles by which to guide their thinking on the issue, recite thought-stopping phrases like, "I'm all for enforcing immigration laws, but come on, we're Christians; we aren't for mass deportations! We're supposed to love our neighbors!" What they are for is neither a defined principle or nor the prudent application of principles, but rather meaningless platitudes which they mistake for both. In truth, such evangelicals aren't void of theological and political principles; rather, by ignorance and a failure to reason in a noncontradictory manner, they wrongly suppose their secular, liberal presuppositions to be biblical, and thus their sense of politics is entirely incoherent and usually opposed to natural law and the scriptures.
Reformed Christian Politics is not content for evangelicals to remain here. It nobly attempts what will inevitably be scorned by a reactionary evangelicalism, namely, to build (or rather re-lay) the principled foundations of a Reformed Christian political theory, such that Christians will no longer be swayed to and fro in the political arena but instead have an unchanging, reasonable, and scriptural foundation in which to ground their political principles and policies. To that end, I gladly commend this book for your reading!
There are several points in the book that this reader found especially enlightening.
First, from Chapter One:
This is the first time I've understood the distinction between ethics and politics, the former directing interactions between individuals, the latter interactions between the collective citizens of a civil society. The conflation of ethics and politics is perhaps the number one reason evangelicalism's conception of politics is muddled, incoherent, and seems to demand the national suicide of the American people under the banner of "neighbor love." Yet contrary to modern liberal assertions, most of the commands of Jesus in the Gospels pertain to the realm of ethics, and are not meant to translate one-to-one to the formulation of laws.
From Chapter Three:
Modern Reformed Christians have been taught that the differences between the 1788 WCF and 1646 WCF on the topic of the civil magistrate are fundamental. Kevin DeYoung has been a popular force in this regard, seeking to convince evangelicals that the American Reformed tradition departs from the essence of its spiritual forbears in the realm of church and state relations. What Garris demonstrates is that such differences are not evidence of essentially differing conceptions of church and state. Rather, what the 1646 WCF stated as mandatory for civil magistrates, the 1788 WCF stated as permissible but not mandatory. This owed not to differing conceptions of the civil magistrate in principle, but accounted for a differing American context where a kind of pan-Protestantism made such obligations of the civil magistrate imprudent in practice, not impermissible in principle.
From Chapter Six: R2K (modern "Reformed" Two Kingdoms) is a new political ideology that has become alarmingly widespread among Reformed thinkers, built upon a novel, and faulty, interpretation of the Noahic covenant. It seeks to delineate the civil and churchly kingdoms such that conclusions such as, "God requires government officials to protect your right to publicly blaspheme Him" become sacrosanct, just as morally binding as the commands of Scripture themselves. Garris well demonstrates the inanity and incoherence of this system of belief, as well as evidencing how foreign it is to the Reformed tradition.
Overall, there is a further benefit to this book. It is to the evangelical as medicine is to the sick patient. It reveals, and then sets about remedying, some glaring deficiencies of contemporary evangelicalism. Namely, evangelicals largely possess a reactionary faith. Our beliefs, especially in the realm of politics, are entirely unmoored from a fixed set of principles, and instead drift listlessly on the sea of ever-changing public discourse and propagandized news cycles. Tim Keller's popular "Third Way-ism" best exemplifies this, but the phenomenon is not limited to him. Such evangelicals are defined in the negative, that is, by what they don't believe on a given topic, while the actual principles informing their stated beliefs themselves go unstated. Indeed, evangelicals often don't know the very beliefs which inform their political stances. Take the issue of immigration. Countless evangelicals, rather than having any coherent principles by which to guide their thinking on the issue, recite thought-stopping phrases like, "I'm all for enforcing immigration laws, but come on, we're Christians; we aren't for mass deportations! We're supposed to love our neighbors!" What they are for is neither a defined principle or nor the prudent application of principles, but rather meaningless platitudes which they mistake for both. In truth, such evangelicals aren't void of theological and political principles; rather, by ignorance and a failure to reason in a noncontradictory manner, they wrongly suppose their secular, liberal presuppositions to be biblical, and thus their sense of politics is entirely incoherent and usually opposed to natural law and the scriptures.
Reformed Christian Politics is not content for evangelicals to remain here. It nobly attempts what will inevitably be scorned by a reactionary evangelicalism, namely, to build (or rather re-lay) the principled foundations of a Reformed Christian political theory, such that Christians will no longer be swayed to and fro in the political arena but instead have an unchanging, reasonable, and scriptural foundation in which to ground their political principles and policies. To that end, I gladly commend this book for your reading!
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