Postliberal Protestants
A Conversation with Hunter Baker on the Role of Christianity in Public Life
Postliberal Protestants: Baptists Between Obergefell and Christian Nationalism by Hunter Baker
Published by Courier Publishing in 2025
132pp / 978-1955295567/ Purchase
Q. Hunter, thanks for doing this! I enjoyed the book—it was refreshing listening to a sensible approach in a culture that idolizes extremes. My first question is this: Why wade into the thickets of the culture wars?
A. The culture wars have been there almost my entire life and seem to be only getting worse. My particular interest was to make an argument for not taking the postliberal turn on either left or right. It seems to me that we are giving up on liberalism (not meaning left-wing, but instead referring to the kind of politics the West sits atop). I want to find a way to protect the ideas of constitutionalism, limited government, free speech, and religious liberty during a time when people are losing patience with them and yearn for a much more ambitious and forceful approach.
Q. One theme that comes up repeatedly is the distinction between “comprehensive” and “regenerative” Christians. Can you lay out what you mean by those terms?
A. I think John Witte, Jr. may have developed this distinction. The comprehensive church is the old style of unified church and state that was common for many centuries after the early church and then before the modern period. To be born into a community was to take on both a civic and a religious identity. The regenerate church is the more conversionistic type you see prized by Baptists. We want a voluntary church that is not sapped by the presence of large numbers of passive members, nor is its doctrine corrupted by state power. In support of the regenerate perspective, I would say it eventually dominated in the U.S. and has resulted in more vital churches than you see in much of the rest of the world, especially Western Europe where establishment reigned.
Q. What is it about Obergefell that changed the trajectory of our culture that would warrant that as the opposite of Christian nationalism in the subtitle of your book?
A. Obergefell puts orthodox Christian faith directly at loggerheads with the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Constitution. Anyone insisting on the traditional Christian sexual ethic is basically occupying a similar legal position to a Jim Crow racist. I saw that coming and viewed it with dread for many years before it happened. We’re in the early innings of what may happen because of Obergefell.
Q. You note early on that liberalism is “the water in which most of us swim.” And yet, that water is “polluted” with the influence of the Christian faith. How did you come to see this symbiotic relationship and how do we keep them in balance?
A. I would not use the metaphor of pollution. In my view, the Christian faith is a big part of why we have liberalism. Just the idea of the human being made in in the image of God and therefore being worthy of dignity and respect (and possessing a kind of equality with other humans) is a major driver in liberalism as we have experienced it. I believe one of our mistakes is to assume liberalism (or liberal democracy) is automatically sustainable without any connection to the Christian faith. Elton Trueblood memorably spoke of “Cut Flower Society.” I think that’s an accurate interpretation. You separate the rose from the soil and eventually it rots.
Q. At the heart of the book is a major question about the separation of church and state. As a Baptist, how do you approach this fraught issue given its many applications (i.e., the good, the bad, and the ugly)?
A. I’m a huge advocate of the separation of church and state. People will misunderstand me because that phrase has been so abused. It has often been interpreted to mean secularism and a religion-less public square. What I mean by separation is institutional separation. I want a free and vital church that is capable of standing outside or working with state. Ideally, the church is a kind of soul or conscience of the broader society. When the two are connected, I think the church can often end up as a kind of dog on a leash.
“Ideally, the church is a kind of soul or conscience of the broader society.
Q. As a follow up, can you talk to me about the respective vigor of the “established church” versus a church sharpened by the opportunity for cultural engagement? I ask this because there is a tension at the heart of American political theology between the propriety of establishing markers of the Christian faith (e.g., Texas’ recent attempt to restore prayer in the classroom, Louisiana trying to do the same with the Ten Commandments), and the vigor of the early church in having to “work out the tension” in an “adversarial” culture.
A. I have different reactions to the two examples. Culturally, I think the Ten Commandments have a definite place. Objectively, they have been a major influence (and continue to be) on our moral sense and our basic standards. I think it is good to see something other than purely free-standing law. We found out after WWII that we need a foundation and not just law as power or majoritarianism. But prayer in school is probably a mistake. I don’t want school officials or unbelieving teachers leading that exercise. There’s a lot of room for error in something like that. With regard to the church working within an adversarial culture, I think we should hope for something like Niebuhr’s “Christ the Transformer of Culture” model rather than pure conflict. But I greatly prefer conflict to squishy, diluted faith.
Q. You write that the secularization project often ends with the privatization of religion. What is it about Christianity that makes it so problematic for some in the public square?
A. Christianity makes ultimate claims. We are saying Christ is the king. That means no earthly power deserves primacy of place or can be totally free of accountability. A friend who lived in China told me the state churches don’t mention Christ’s resurrection much. Death is the ultimate power the state wields. Resurrection trumps it.
Q. There was an interesting poll recently (here) where Republican and Democrat Gen Z voters were asked to define “success.” The results showed that every single demographic (i.e., female and male who voted for Harris or Trump) had “fame and influence” at the very bottom of their definition, which struck me as odd that so few wanted to admit that success is, at the very least, connected to the desire for one’s ideals to be the prevailing influence on culture.
You talk a lot about the lure of power and wealth. At the end, you have a great quote after discussing Machiavelli that says “[a]ll of us, right, left, and center are in danger of abandoning true faithfulness for the pursuit of human victory.” Are we actually moving away from the desire to colonize spheres of influence or is Gen Z just oblivious to their true intentions?
A. What I see is a never-ending postmodern tournament of narratives at war with each other in the public square. We all want to win and seem to basically believe that winning is the only real vindication. Part of the nightmare of losing any common foundation is that it all comes down to power. I think that’s where we are.
Q. Maybe I’m wrong, but with the second Trump term came a “new majority” in relation to the influence of Christianity. We see this prominently in Silicon Valley and the White House. Now that the Johnson Amendment is repealed, do you sense that your focus will shift to helping Christians mediate their enthusiasm for Christian nationalism instead of fighting those who would marginalize the role of Christianity?
A. I am absolutely battling against Christian nationalism. While I’m more sympathetic to it than I am to the “cultured despisers of Christianity,” I find it to be highly problematic. In my view, the Church of England is a project of Christian nationalism. And what I see there is a church that is domesticated and largely symbolic. I think Christian nationalism ends somewhere like that. I don’t want that to happen to the churches I love.
Q. Our Christian Legal Society (CLS) student leaders are asked to sign onto a Community Life Statement that in so many words affirms traditional marriage between a man and a woman.[1] When students discover this (especially leaders on the Student Bar Association tasked with recognizing new student organizations), many of our student leaders are pressured to relinquish their association with CLS. And many of them are pressured by being called things like “bigots” or “homophobes.”
You hold firm on the need for Baptists to retain their stance on marriage. What is your advice to law students being pressured to compromise—especially in light of a profession fueled by social networks?
A. If they would all stand strong, they would have a far better chance of prevailing. But I’ve seen similar things happen elsewhere. There have been some who have tried to marginalize Christian philosophers, for example. It is the kind of thing that could spread over many professions and endeavors. It could eventually wipe out Christian higher education. I tried to address some of these things in the book. It comes down to pure intimidation and is not a good indicator for the kind of free society the secular left claims to believe is desirable.
Hunter Baker (J.D., Ph.D.) is the provost and dean of faculty at North Greenville University in South Carolina (full bio). He also teaches political science there. He is the author of The End of Secularism, Political Thought: A Student’s Guide, and The System Has a Soul: Essays on Christianity, Liberty, and Political Life.
[1] “We renounce unbiblical behaviors, including deception, malicious speech, drunkenness, drug abuse, stealing, cheating, and other immoral conduct such as using pornography and engaging in sexual relations other than within a marriage between one man and one woman.” https://www.christianlegalsociety.org/cls-community-life-statement/.