Discretion can become rebellion.

A certain strain of Christian Nationalism (and its adjacent positions) places a strong emphasis on the necessary adaptation of principle to circumstance. Stephen Wolfe, for instance, speaks of a necessary discretion, adapting natural and divine law to the circumstance of the particular people, such that neither requires “magistrates to suppress false religion absolutely and extensively—especially if doing so would be to the detriment of the church or commonwealth” (pg. 65). But such discretion easily runs out of bounds, becoming a choice in whether or not to apply a law, rather than a righteous adaptation to circumstance.

Technical Inability

First, we must acknowledge an area where adaptation to the point of non-application is permissible: when we, Christians, do not have a choice in the matter. I do not sin when I vote for a candidate who promises better than now but clearly will not actually apply His law in full, so long as he was the best choice. I would not sin if, as a ruler, I enacted an incomplete advancement towards His law, stopping short because practical politics forbid full implementation or because ongoing damage requires a weaning process (an example of the latter would be dealing with the US debt-economy: fix it to fast, and everything crashes). The caveat here is that my inability must be actual inability, not cowardice or worldly wisdom masked as prudence.

The Danger

The grave danger here, however, is that we will start altering the law of God to fit our circumstances, rather than looking at our circumstances through the unaltered law of God. One vector for this is a perspective which does not seek to remove a technical inability, allowing it to persist unchanged despite the possibility of changing it. The typical path, however, is that enabled by natural law (and its accompanying dose of ‘ignoring how Scripture clearly speaks on the topic’). Here, we ‘adapt to the circumstance’ by the simplest expedient: natural law, being natural, is completely malleable to natural circumstance, in a way God’s law is not and ought not to be.

In sum, the error here is in making the adaptation a change in the principle (such as in repealing the Mosaic civil law), rather than an application of an unchanged principle to altered circumstances (such as re-applying Exodus 22 from the theft of animals to the theft of stocks) or a recognition of to-be-worked-against technical inability to carry out the law in full (combined with maximum possible application of the law).

Proper Adaptation

Proper adaptation of God’s law does not ever change the principle; God’s law is not malleable to circumstance. What proper adaptation does is recognize differences and account for their interplay with the principles. A cow and a cat have different values and different vulnerability; the same damage dealt to each requires different responses from the law. The principle applying to the cow does not lapse but is rather confirmed by its application to the cat. The moral duty to obey and carry out the whole of the law persists. Justice, however, is proportional, and so different proportions require different responses.

Some parts of application are less straightforward to adapt, of course; God’s prescriptions for the form of our civil government are not exhaustive as to procedure, though complete in characterizing its proper moral character. Thus, a people’s particular character, geography, and other circumstances will properly influence the procedures of its civil government. Yet, at the end of the day, God’s law is sufficient for all ethical questions (2 Tim. 3:16-17) and so ought to be our reliance in every place, without exception, remembering always that circumstance is no excuse for forgetfulness (Deut. 4:2). Adaptation cannot mean modification.

God bless.