For shorter books, it is often easier to read the entire thing through than it is to comment on it. This book was no different. After I read Choose Better: Five Biblical Models For Making Ethical Decisions, I found myself spending more time writing this article than I did reading the book. As a matter of fact, I didn’t originally intend to write up a review. But after writing down a few thoughts, I quickly found that I had a lot more on my mind than a few notes.
For most lay people in the evangelical world, it can be difficult to find books by reformed authors that aren’t heavily influenced by the spirit of the age. Even if a book does manage to maintain orthodoxy, it is oftentimes more theoretical than practical. Evangelical publishers are notorious for producing this kind of two-edged material, selling books that can be theologically helpful yet typically plagued by asinine applications. Choose Better, by T. David Gordon, is no different. Readers will need to determine if the potential insights they could gain from such a book are worth the cost.
Seeing The Big Picture
The book is relatively small and can be read quickly from cover to cover. Due to its size, it appears to function as a primer rather than a definitive treatise on the subject. Questions are included at the end of each chapter to guide further discussion. The book’s primary purpose was to introduce five “models” for approaching the subject of ethics. While not comprehensive, the book appears to use each model as a sort of lens for guiding ethical decisions. Each individual model (Imitation, law, wisdom, communion, warfare) is complimentary with the others, contributing multiple angles of discernment. While examples and scenarios are given for each individual model, it should be noted that the book does not attempt to show how all these models interact with a consistent case study. This would have shown which model to value if two models conflict. While I hate criticizing writers for what they don’t say, even the author recognizes the value of a consistent case study across all five models, as the reader is encouraged to create their own scenario. To see the author-approved examples of how to apply these models across the same scenario would have helped significantly in establishing the book’s bigger picture.
The reason I mention this is because it became readily apparent that each system can used to interpret other systems. When introducing the wisdom model, the author claims that “In some evangelical circles, the dominance of the law model has virtually eradicated the wisdom model.”1Choose Better, page 85. He notes that he was raised in a “law-dominant tradition” and expresses an almost personal vendetta against the law-driven model in scattered remarks throughout the book. Despite his initial emphasis on the complementary nature of the models, now it seemed as if the wisdom and law systems had an antagonistic relationship.
In the final pages, Gordon explicitly clarifies that his intention was not to argue for a specific hierarchy among the models in this primer. Yet, in these same closing remarks, the author clarifies that a fuller treatment of Christian ethics would establish the “impression” model as the theological basis of the entire ethical enterprise. Though not explicit at first, an astute reader may have already noticed his love for this model from chapter one.2“Indeed, had we remained innocent, it is my opinion that we would have never needed the complements of some of the other models, such as the law model; imitation would have been sufficient for most of our lives.” – Choose Better, page 35 But if Gordon actually cared about the “eradication” of one model against the other, the decision to not directly address model interactions is a baffling choice. The discussion of how ethical models interact is a recurring theme in the discussion questions, so it seems like a strange decision to leave the reader to create their own cross-model case study without ever giving them any sort of methodology.
The Unusable Law
Setting questions about structure aside, you may find the content of the book to be a bit of a mixed bag. The first model, “impression,” gave a compelling case for rooting our ethics in the character of God. It also provided a helpful discussion of creation, showing how God’s character is evident in his creation and how he has authority over all of it. Another model I found helpful was “communion.” Gordon offers some compelling arguments for this system, showing how an ethic that values our relationship with God will value time with Him.
But despite the positives scattered throughout this book, I found myself frustrated by the negatives. The author carries an almost personal grudge against his religious tradition, a view that colors the entire primer. The third chapter, focusing on the law model, seemed to be the culmination of this grudge, as the author was more intent on answering critics than making a case. It was not until after I read the book that I realized that the author’s presentation of the “law” ethical system was almost entirely formed by his opposition to theonomy.
The chapter begins by asserting that God has the rightful authority to rule us (repeating a point he made in the previous chapter) and that God has given us various commands and/or laws. However, while Gordon sees the specificity of the commands as generally helpful, he is quick to point out that not every command was intended for every person. Even if an underlying moral exists, the author disagrees with a blanket approach that could universally apply God’s law to situations where it was not universally administered. Gordon notes that he could write an entire book on making these distinctions before filing the rest of the chapter under “special challenges to the law model.” While I have no intention of addressing every point, I think some of the views expressed in this section are worth tackling.
The chief concern is Gordon’s covenantal framework. The author distances himself from dispensationalists in that they expect covenantal discontinuity but also believes the theonomists to have erred, as they expect covenantal continuity. To the casual observer, it may seem as if Gordon is attempting to carve out some kind of “middle-ground” between supersessionism and dispensationalism — a place where the church is God’s people but simultaneously liberated from commands given to God’s people. Pitting dispensationalism against theonomy when discussing the permanence of the law seems like an odd choice, and I can’t help but wonder if Gordon is arguing against a strawman here. Theonomists primarily root the persistence of God’s law in the immutable character of God, not in the finer details of a given covenant.
Further compounding the issue is Gordon’s insistence that Israel was a theocracy but that New Testament Christians are under a new, non-theocratic covenant. He writes, “…when Jesus arrived on earth, he expressly stated that his kingdom was non-theocractic. His kingdom was ‘not of this word’ (John 18:36)…” Building on this paradox, Gordon appeals to Romans 13, arguing that even civil authorities were bound to this non-theocracy.
“In the theocracy, the covenant people had the authority and the responsibility to execute certain categories of offenders; in the non-theocracy, the covenant people do not have this authority. And indeed, Paul does not appear to teach that the civil magistrates ought to execute such people either–rather, it ought to punish evildoers in a general, moral sense, not in a theocratic or religious sense (see Rom. 13).”
Choose Better, page 64
Though brief, the argument presented in these few paragraphs is incoherent. Abandoning his previously constructed hermeneutic, the author suggests that God’s people are called to immanentize a secular regime by pointing to a tortured reading of Romans 13 and flat-out contradicting Jesus’ words in John 18:36. Even if these comments are skipped over, this chapter will undoubtedly frustrate the casual reader. Historical frameworks for the topic, such as the threefold use of the law, are completely absent from the chapter. Instead, Gordon’s case for the law model is an attempt to work through a nuanced dispensational framework, culminating in a revolutionary new form of government: a New Testament Church Anti-Theocracy.
Ethics For Troublemakers
At this point, it is quite likely that only those of you who are familiar with the author’s previous work could understand his argument. However, I fear that getting familiar with this polarizing author may be a bit of a challenge for the younger crowd. Gordon writes as an older man, using his affinity for the music of Brahms and his love for Robert Frost as ethical examples from his own life. He often appeals to his own experience, recalling (as an example of foolishness) the story of a church layperson who tediously explained the book of Galatians to him for 20 minutes. Gordon insists that we live in a “youth culture” — a society that idealizes athleticism and slender bodies — and remarks on the perceived significance of this cultural issue numerous times throughout the book. I am a married man living in the United States, yet my own experience points to the opposite. Demographically, much of the population in America is considered overweight or obese. Politically, boomers have dominated as the largest generational voting bloc, and every year, the gerontocracy finds new ways to extend their power. So when Gordon claims that our present society is a “youth culture,” it wasn’t just an unusual claim to my ears — it was practically incoherent.
After a bit of research, I realized that the author had a history of thriving on controversy. In his article, “The Decline of Christianity in the West? A Contrarian View,”3https://opc.org/os.html?article_id=44.%2526pfriendly=Y%2526ret=L29zLmh0bWw%252FYXJ0aWNsZV9pZD00NC4%253D Gordon asserts that the decline of cultural religion (Christendom) will actually correlate to the progress of Christianity. A terrifying read, the article echoes Russell Moore as it decries Constantinianism and claims the United States was never a Christian nation. In 2002, Gordon published an article titled “The Insufficiency of Scripture.” After copious amounts of negative feedback, the publisher renamed the article to dampen the adverse reactions.4https://www.modernreformation.org/resources/articles/how-my-mind-has-changed When his denomination issued a letter to the civil government opposing trans surgeries on minors, Gordon found himself submitting a 4-page protest against his presbytery. The author attempted to draw a fine line between the ecclesiastical and civil spheres of authority in his unconvincing rationale. Within these fine lines, Gordon attempted to show that as long as Christian ethical principles could be applied within the church’s sphere, then the church council ought not to be concerned.
“Our churches today already are sovereign within the ecclesiastical realm to instruct our members regarding biblical sexual ethics. The state currently permits us to declare that homosexuality is a sin, for instance, even though it permits gay people to marry; and yet does not require ministers to conduct such services if their conscience does not permit doing so. The state permits the church to teach parents not to assist in transgendering their children, and permits the church to teach physicians and surgeons who are church-members not to participate in such.”
T. David Gordon, “Thoughts on Overture 12 From the 2023 PCA General Assembly: Sending the Overture to the Civil Magistrate”5https://theaquilareport.com/thoughts-on-overture-12-from-the-2023-pca-general-assembly-sending-the-overture-to-the-civil-magistrate/
Gordon’s manipulation of jurisdictional principles will likely come as a complete shock for the casual book reader. LGBT+ issues are some of the least complex ethics in the Christian faith, with all Christians throughout all of history proclaiming a universal condemnation of these sexual perversions. Yet the author’s commitment to his revolutionary form of government dramatically shifts his ethics, arguing against all five models in order to advocate for his new covenant anti-theocracy.
The Decision
At some point, any potential reader will need to decide if this book is worth reading or not. It will likely be frustrating to know that an entire chapter of such a short primer (1/6 of the book) is completely unusable. However, the more relevant dilemma is that even if the reader does manage to enjoy the other parts of the book, the author’s use of these ethics in the real world is more than just unconventional; it is agonistic. The very purpose of ethical models is to provide frameworks for real-world decisions. Seeing the author of Choose Better astroturf every ethical system he has for the sake of immanentizing anti-theocracy on earth gives me very little confidence in his work.
I don’t pretend to know what every reader would want in a book, but the target audience for Choose Better seems to be a non-existent demographic. I suppose an elderly study group may find some appeal in the book’s content, though they would likely need a pre-existing love of secularism to truly enjoy it. An almost personal animus towards theonomy colors the book, as if he were attempting to pass this grudge to the next generation of readers as well.
As far as I’m concerned, readers should choose better than Choose Better.
Sources:
- 1Choose Better, page 85
- 2“Indeed, had we remained innocent, it is my opinion that we would have never needed the complements of some of the other models, such as the law model; imitation would have been sufficient for most of our lives.” – Choose Better, page 35
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