Christian Pastor and State Senator Dusty Deevers has responded to an article written about him in the Rolling, This Lawmaker Wants to Jail People for Watching Porn, where he is featured and characterized as a “hardcore Christian nationalist who believes the government should “terrorize evildoers”
When the article begins with “Dusty Deevers is a fundamentalist preacher. He’s also a state senator. And he insists he doesn’t see “any firewalls” between his two roles — as he crusades to outlaw porn, end what he decries as the “abortion holocaust,” and abolish no-fault divorce in Oklahoma,” you know you’re in for a good ride.
Deevers shares these observations on X
“12 Brief Notes on the @RollingStone article.”
1. I’ve cut my own hair since I was a junior in high school. Thanks for the compliment. Also, my jackets are not tailored. Maybe someday.
2. Unsurprisingly, you missed the distinction I made on “firewalls” between the church and state, and what it means that civil servants, through just law and enforcement “terrorize evildoers.” You wrote that I am a “…hardcore Christian nationalist who believes the government should ‘terrorize evildoers.’” and that, “I don’t see any firewalls that are provided to me by the scriptures.”
In that discussion and here, I articulate the Christian position that there is a distinction between the roles and tools of the church and those of the state.
The church bears the “sword of the Spirit,” namely, the Word of God (Eph 6:17) for conversion of heart, construction of holy living, and correction of sin.
Civil servants bear the sword of justice to protect innocent people’s God-given rights to life, liberty, and property, and inflict “God’s wrath upon wrongdoers.” In this way just law and punishment terrorize evildoers. This is simply Romans 13:1-4.
“For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer” (Rom 13:3-4)
While there is a distinction between the roles and tools of the church and state, there is no firewall between God’s rule over the church and His rule over the state, because Christ is King over all by His essential rule as God and His mediatorial rule as God-Man.
All things were created by, for, and through Christ and He rules over all things “in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities” (Col 1:16).
3. “Surveying American society, Deevers does not see a religious sphere and a secular sphere…” This is good. Thank you for including. As reported, “In Deevers’ view, civil society, apart from the influence of overt Christian doctrine, is not a neutral middle ground, but rather the realm of the devil, or what he calls ‘a serpentine theocracy.’”
4. “Deevers is operating in the open.” Yes. Like Jesus said, “Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven” (Matt 5:16)
5. You’re wrong here. Our message is not “woe be to any nonbelievers,” but come to Christ and know forgiveness of sins, eternal life in the fullness of joy. Also, Christians are offering to protect all people’s God-given rights with equal weights and measures for all. “When the righteous increase, the people rejoice, but when the wicked rule, the people groan” (Prov 29:2).
6. “elder millennial vibes” Sounds cool.
7. Our nation is not a “democracy.” Never has been. We are “a republic, if we can keep it,” to paraphrase Benjamin Franklin.
8. Yes. In love for God and others, I do want “to steer society away from the ‘judgment that we deserve.’”
Come to Christ so you will not “suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might, 10 when he comes on that day to be glorified in his saints, and to be marveled at among all who have believed, because our testimony to you was believed” (2 Thes 1:9-10)
9. “He augments his views with moralist policy thought poems.” Like.
10. Thank you for including this: “He has introduced a bill to abolish the state income tax, which he claimed in a post on X is “an unjust tax upon [a] man’s first fruits and livelihood,” suggesting it violates at least three of the Ten Commandments.”
11. Great ending!
12. Thank you for writing! All in all, a good piece.
