Populism levels and diminishes the importance of institutions and authorities. I find it a cancerous blight on our current political discourse.
I'm going to make an analogy from the theological idea of Sola Scriptura to political populism, so stick with me.
Recently I was discussing the "No Creed but Christ" creed with a friend. See what I did there? We should have no other authority than the Word of God, it is argued. Sola Scriptura argues that Scripture alone is the ULTIMATE authority, but not that it is the ONLY one. There are legitimate authorities in the family, church, institutions of learning, and so on. There are specialists who know more about a field than the general populace. These authorities aren't infallible (ahem-Fauci-ahem), but when they get it wrong we are sorely tempted to just shove them aside, and believe what we read on the internet ourselves.
Do you see the connection? There is a parallel error in rejecting the authority of any theological confessions, and rejecting political authority.
Now, the confessions should be rejected at any part we find them to deviate from Scripture. Just as a politician should be challenged when he advocates an unconstitutional policy. But the ecclesiastical authority of the confession remains, as does the political office. They are both needed for good order in civil and church society.
So here's my punchline: conservative Christians who rail against political elites, but revere their confessions, are deeply inconsistent. Let us respect and honor earthly authorities in every part of our lives, as Scripture calls for, and not pick and choose.
Let me head off an objection: "But our loyalty is to the document, not to the people filling the office!" it is claimed. This is true, but only in part. Office holders should be true to the written, social contract, yes. But you don't have a nation without people chosen to set policy, and other office-holders chosen to decide whether it is judged as in line with the society's charter. You don't have a church without pastors to teach the Bible. We need to be Bereans, but if each individual is the sole arbiter of whether the pastor is faithful to the text, we have chaos. As Aaron Renn has argued recently, a society needs elites, even when we are deeply frustrated at their wicked recent behavior.
(This is what the Magisterial Reformation was all about: Luther and Calvin and the other main figures sought to uphold and work with the civil rulers. The Anabaptist radicals in stark contrast sought to reject them, drop out of an incurably corrupt society, and set up their own parallel institutions / communes. I fear the conservative church is becoming Anabaptist instead of Magisterial in its politics.)
We can deem the policy our society adopts to be wrong, and seek to change it, but we are still part of that society. Dropping out, a la the Benedict Option, can only be achieved in part. The church is to be salt and light in the world.
This principle also doesn't mean we should meekly go along with bad policy. Strenuous objection is a form of honor. If a Christian father converts to Islam, and his wife and 19 year old son who live with him just shrug and leave him, they are not honoring him. They should plead and persuade and convince him to return to the faith first. And if he doesn't, he is still their father.
We used to mock the Hollywood star who vowed to move to Canada if the Republican candidate is elected. Now such moves are literally happening en masse. This is not wrong, per se. We don't have the same loyalty to a state or country as we do to our family. But we are naive idealists if we think we HAVE to live in a civil society that shares our values in large part. Most Christians who have lived throughout history have NOT done so, and yet prospered spiritually.
So let's find ways to honor and work with authorities political and churchly, with whom we disagree. I fully admit there is a swamp to drain out there. But we are not egalitarians either, setting ourselves up individually as the arbiter of all truth.
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