David Mueller shared with me a delightful and incisive “hypothetical interview” on “Masks and Masking.” It consists of such gems as

I would tell [evangelical leaders] that they have spent so much time telling us that there is no such thing as political theology that when a moment arises when there is a manifest need for a robust political theology, one that is grounded in Scripture, they choked. And when they choked, they simply defaulted to whatever the spirit of the age was demanding — take a knee, put on this mask, cancel worship services, whatever. I am deeply interested in where these evangelical leaders you spoke of would draw the line. Where would they say no, and why? Suppose their worship services are closed through the rest of this year. And then the next. When would they say enough? And what standard would they appeal to when they did?

and

A free people should be jealous of their liberty. And one of the best ways to be jealous of your liberty is to require the government, whenever it exercises its authority coercively, to be able to give a very specific reason. A general reason is not good enough. The law should prohibit stealing, for example, and when the cops arrest a thief, they should be able to say that they arrested him because he was “stealing.” Negative prohibitions are the foundation of civic liberty, and broad, general feel-good directives are the foundation of tyranny. Negative restrictions of the “thou shalt not” variety are the foundation of limited government. But if the government has come to think that its marching orders amount to “make sure that everybody out there is happy,” there will be no limit to the authority they feel they must claim en route, and the end result will be misery and unhappiness for virtually everyone. By contrast, if we tell them to limit themselves to making it hard on people who steal car stereos, for example, everybody comes out ahead.

Enjoy!

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