Timothy Keller and the Conscience of the West

The Wormtongue of Public Protestantism

"Christians in the West today certainly have to resist the lure of cultural idols, especially those that promise political power or social relevance."

—Tim Keller

Note: this article was originally written prior to Keller’s passing. It is here published for the first time, on September 27th, in the year of our Lord Jesus Christ, 2023.

Setting the Stage

The Keller quote above is the staging area of this here article. We begin with this question: What is the subtext? There is your meaning and message, because that, and moderate-middling, is Keller's schtick. He is not a plain man; he is a balanced cognoscente. And thus, he is here to witness to the inerrancy and infallibility of winsome Scripture, all while he cedes public ground to the enemies of Christ.

The meaning is this: Christians are not to seek public power, politically or socially, because this is a cultural idol. Power and relevance are bad. This implies the inverse is good. What is the inverse? Weakness, inferiority, impotence, irrelevance, insignificance. Thus, weakness and impotence and irrelevance are good. What particular kind? To answer, return to the original conditional: public—i.e. political, social, cultural, institutional, and like matters.

Keller's implied position is that, in the midst of Christians being publicly dispossessed by the militant faith of Secular Liberalism, they are to go even further. They are to offer their necks upon the chopping block, to die a freewill sacrifice to the gods of the day. This is present faithfulness. Anything less is bad.

It is not enough to be increasingly deprived of influence in various ways; you must be made comprehensively impotent in public matters. Total devotion is demanded. You have lost some limbs, yes, but that is insufficient; you must also lose your head.

Public apostasy must be met, not with fire and thunder, not with courage and candor, not with manful resistance and counteroffensive, but with winsome whispers of effete acquiescence and obeisance.

There are no bold lions, only quiet lambs, in Kellerland. (Proverbs 28:1b).

Summing up:

• Public virility is bad.

• Public sterility is good.

• Eschew the bad; pursue the good.

This is the message.

Not So Fast, Mr. Uncharitable

Let us suppose, however, that someone suggests this is not a fair reading of Keller. Very well. Let us put the most charitable read upon it. Let us naively imagine that, contrary to his typical method and angle, there is no subtext and Keller is not prodding the Middle to cede to the Left, nor is he gaslighting the Right to retreat from the Fight. Let us suppose that he genuinely means that we must beware a sinful and idolatrous seeking of political and social power, and beware inordinate obsession with the public. Fine. Granted and agreed. Really, who would disagree?

But ask: is this emphasis really commensurate to the actual danger of the day, concerning the public? Is the problem with Christians, concerning the public, that they are too power-hungry and make idols of the culture? Or is it that they do not understand the nature of, relationship to, and righteous use of power and culture, much or at all? —that they have been sheepish, not shrewd, and have suffered for it? —that they don't realize trite thoughts on power can be, indeed often are breeding grounds for tyranny? —that they don’t see part of the reason the Philistines oppress us is because Judah, in spiritless indifference, will not let Samson exert his strength?

I wager that anyone endowed with at least one eye and a peanut brain will answer in the affirmative.

Making a Mirrorless Man

Keller is supposed to be the The Public Discerner of the Church, a sort of maven of missions for the modern Meekman. But here he proves he's unfit to read the room—and he hasn't even made it past the vestibule. His message about public power is a bit like saying to a large group of single men and women who can and ought to get married, "Now, you must beware of marriage idols, especially seeking a masculine husband or a feminine wife," or, "Beware family idols, especially procreation and home ownership." It’s basically a request to denature oneself through weakening.

Political power and social relevance, in Keller, are assumed as undesirable, ostensibly unnatural—as things to beware. But branding them this way is itself unnatural. These are goods, in themselves, as part of the created order, and are natural—just as a masculine man and a feminine woman in marriage, or children and a home for a family. All good theologians tell us: grace restores nature. Therefore, for Christians, political power and social relevance—natural public clout—are to be sought and wielded in righteous and good ways. And, because of sin, where this is not the case, i.e. where public power is ceded and abdicated by Christians, the wicked will come and take it for themselves, and, surprise, use it sinfully. There is no neutrality.

Of course, Keller, though he postures himself as The Balanced Tolerant, has not escaped the intolerant inevitability of the very things he glibly dismisses as idols. His public persona is itself a tacit testimony to his own desire for- and his possession and wielding of- political power and social relevance. He writes these things in attempts to shape Public Conscience in order to conform it to his own particular view of what public power is, and how Christians are to relate to it and act concerning it. Indeed, one fails to see how the underlying logic does not indict Keller himself as an idolater.

Thus, The Aloof Postmodern Critic has himself succumbed to the deceptive conceit of the postmodern method: denying to others what he himself wields, and typically with a posture of feigned humility. What is really going on is spiritless indifference spawned of a small soul, shilled as sweet sagacity. Whereas the common postmodern refrain is to assert the truth that "there is no truth," Keller uses his public power and relevance to tell us that public power and relevance are bad. As he gouges out his eyes, he claims that he sees, —and that he sees well enough to guide the blackening Conscience of the West into moral light. Keller, in this sense, lacks self-awareness at best, which makes him the blind leading the blind; or, he is perfectly self-aware at worst, in which case he is a bad actor and a deceiver, playing tricks on the masses.

Are You Seeing Straight, Sparky?

Notice, however, the consequence, for ye shall know them- not by their Concern™- but by their fruits (Matthew 7:16): the truth about power dies, and agency with it. Which has major consequences for you. The postmodern man, though he possesses the truth, nevertheless abuses truth in order to evade its concomitant claims upon him as a moral agent accountable to the God of justice. Keller, falling right in line with all the other Liberal lemmings, uses his actual possession of public power as a Christian elite in order to undermine the possible apprehension of public power for Christian regulars—which would include the agency engaged to attain it, reclaim it, or resist it accordingly.

“Power for me, not for thee.” This is Keller’s power creed. And it is Liberalism.

What does it mean to see straight in this context, then? Glad you asked. Here are some reality spectacles: Keller is a Liberal engaged in Liberal declension via rhetorical and intellectual sleight of hand; he manages, facilitates, and inspires the public declension of the Protestant Faith. Judging by the effects, an honest and duly charitable mind must reckon that this is the case—that the design of his prose, his argumentation, and his ideas is to publicly disenfranchise Christians—to ambiguate their thinking about and hamstring their pursuit of public power, and to nullify any will of opposition to the everywhere-present apostasy.

In Keller, power is pre-emptively problematized so that you will avoid the alleged “problem” of power, which means you effectively have no answer to the actual problem of Liberal power, at least not at a political, cultural, or social level. Whether or not this is witting or unwitting on Keller’s part is mostly irrelevant, although it is initially difficult to conclude such an intellectual is genuinely unaware of his aims. What is relevant is that it is and that he is—that it is subversion and that he is the subversive. And yes, by this I am suggesting that you can either see straight or remain blind. You can have real piety. Or play piety.

At this point, being a man of the Book, I must kindly remind you that real piety with real sobriety knows that the hottest fires of hell are specially reserved for the power-players of play piety (Matthew 23). Now, I am not suggesting that Keller is in hell. I don’t pretend to know. But I am suggesting that Christian elites who betray their constituents to the jaws of Liberalism, and who do so by wresting Christian doctrine and sentiment from proper order, are giving indications that they may be masters in the art of play piety. And perhaps the most fearful thing of all is that they may be sincerely convinced this is godliness (John 16:2).

The Final Judgment

All the world is a stage. And the showing tonight on the main street of Realville is Public Protestantism. The curtain of judgment opens upon the world-renowned, leading actor, Timothy Keller. The audience is soaked in anticipation. He naturally dons the costume and character of Wormtongue, the friendly fiend. His role? To publish in the ear of an ailing and bewitched Christendom, "Quiet, and sleep, my king; all is well in the realm." This he whispers winsomely, from the comfort of the throne room in Big Eva Castle, as the Orc hordes of Lord Liberalism set kin, kirk, and country aflame.

The time cometh, and I shall no more speak to you in parables. Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: God shall bring every work into judgment, including me, you, and Timothy Keller. Though he and his fellow sophisticates may demur, Keller is effectively merciless—not because he will not fight, but because he fights to disarm those who would seek to do valiantly. He is not a coward—he is worse than a coward: he will not let men have courage; and therefore, he abandons the Conscience of the West to be raped by Unbelief.

Let the reader understand.