A Rejoinder to Don Green: A Biblical and Theological Defense of Co-Belligerency
I. Introduction: The Nature of the Conflict
The cultural moment we inhabit is one of moral collapse, civic chaos, and open hostility toward the created order of God. In such times, some voices within the church—such as Pastor Don Green, of whom I have great respect—issue sharp rebukes against any cooperation with unbelievers in the civil sphere, under the banner of preserving "gospel purity" (click here to view his post). While this concern may arise from noble intent, it often results in a harmful overcorrection that misunderstands biblical categories, denies God's providential rule over the civil sphere, and effectively silences the church from loving her neighbor in public justice.
This primer answers such criticisms with biblical clarity, theological precision, and historical fidelity. We affirm: co-belligerency is not compromise—it is combat. It is not ecclesial union; it is lawful, biblical, and essential civil resistance against evil.
II. Presuppositional Clarification: The Ground of All Thought and Ethics
Biblical ethics must begin with biblical presuppositions. We do not argue from neutrality. God has spoken. Civil engagement is not a secular question but a theological one. Every human activity belongs to Christ (Col 1:16–17). Our thinking is either rooted in the wisdom of God or the folly of man (Prov 1:7; Rom 1:21). To denounce co-belligerency simply because it involves unbelievers is to adopt an unbiblical, quasi-Gnostic view of civil society. This is a quasi-Gnostic error — because Scripture teaches that God created the civil realm (Rom 13:1–7), and common grace operates there (Matt 5:45). If you say “Christians must have nothing to do with unbelievers in matters of civil good”, you imply that the common realm (politics, justice, community, etc.) is inherently evil or corrupting.
The key error in Don Green’s reasoning is a category confusion: he fails to distinguish between spiritual fellowship (which requires regeneration, gospel unity, and doctrinal agreement) and civil cooperation (which requires only common interest in restraining evil and promoting justice). By collapsing these categories, he ironically redefines holiness in a way that leads to ethical impotence (much like the Priest and the Levite contra the Good Samaritan in Luke 10).
III. Sphere Sovereignty and Common Grace: God’s Created Order
The biblical doctrine of sphere sovereignty, simplified, teaches that God has established distinct realms of authority—family, church, and state—each with its own purpose, authority, and telos under the Lordship of Christ. These spheres must not be conflated, but neither must they be isolated. Christians live within all three and have responsibilities to God and neighbor in each. In the church, we do not yoke with unbelievers (2 Cor 6:14). But in the civil sphere, we lawfully cooperate with non-Christians, not because they are spiritually pure, but because God's common grace restrains sin and enables shared participation in the cultural mandate (Gen 1:28; Rom 13:1–7).
IV. Jehu: Common Grace and Cultural Responsibility
While common grace is not salvific, it restrains evil and enables civic virtue. According to Bavinck, the image of God, though marred, remains sufficiently operative in unbelievers so that society does not collapse into total anarchy. This is why even pagan rulers can be called God’s ministers for good (Rom 13:4). In fact, biblically, good is attributed to unregenerate men. Before God, there is none good as the mind set on the flesh is hostile to God (Rom 3:10-12; 8:7-8). However, scripture describes a relative good of unregenerate men even when they fail to work from the proper motivation and aim. Consider Jehu: he was an idolator who eradicated Baal from Israel while still officially supporting the idolatry of Jeroboam (2 Kings 10:28-29; cf 1 Kings 12:28-33). Yet, even though Jehu was not careful to walk in the law of Yahweh with all his heart (2 Kings 10:31), God Himself says to Jehu, “…you have done good in doing what is right in My eyes…” (2 Kings 10:30). Jehu, an unbeliever laboring in the civil sphere, did what was good and right in God’s eyes. Would it not follow that any co-laborers with Jehu also did good insofar as they participated with Jehu toward the same end?
Example: Joseph and Pharaoh (Gen 41)
Joseph partnered with a sun-worshiping, pagan tyrant to save millions. Should he have said, “I cannot work with you, Pharaoh, because you worship Ra”? Had he done so, the world would have starved. What would you have done? Would you have stood by in pious separation as Egypt and Israel perished?
Example: Daniel and Babylon (Dan 6)
Daniel served as chief of the magicians, diviners, and pagan administrators. Yet he never compromised worship. Would you have denounced Daniel for platforming magicians and diviners? Bavinck’s model is logically consistent: engage the world, but don’t wed it. Use God’s common grace; preserve and proclaim saving grace.
V. Schaeffer: The Modern Defense of Co-Belligerency
Francis Schaeffer, seeing the rise of secular totalitarianism and moral collapse, coined the term “cobelligerent” to describe those who fight the same enemy on a specific front, but do not share the same theology. An “ally” shares your faith; a “co-belligerent” shares your enemy. In A Christian Manifesto, Schaeffer warned that silence in the face of evil is itself evil. This is biblical (Prov 31:8-9; Isa 1:17; Ezk 33; Eph 5:11). If Christians refuse to act unless the cause is carried entirely by regenerate saints, they surrender the civil sphere to Satan. If the state legalizes murder, and Muslims, Catholics, and secularists all protest while evangelicals remain silent—who is more faithful to the image of God? If we refuse co-belligerency, we fail to love our neighbor.
VI. Preserving Gospel Purity While Resisting Evil
Green’s critique rests on this assertion: “You cannot platform false religion.” But this raises the question—what does platform mean? If he means “share gospel ministry,” we agree. We do not host ecumenical crusades. But if he means “stand in public with a non-Christian to oppose evil,” his definition collapses. Paul co-belligerated with Pharisees in Acts 23:6 to uphold his life through the doctrine of resurrection, even though they denied Christ. He did not thereby validate their entire theology. 2 Cor 6:14–18 teaches that we do not yoke in spiritual fellowship—but that’s not what civil co-belligerence is. Gal 1:6–9 guards gospel purity, not limiting where you earn your living or who you employ at your job to a church’s doctrinal statement. Would Pastor Green and those of his persuasion think it is a sin for a Christian business owner to “platform” a Roman Catholic salesman by hiring him (and paying him of course) to sell a good product in the civil sphere.
Ironically, many Protestant churches today thunder against Rome in their doctrinal statements while quietly borrowing Rome’s very philosophy of the Christian life. Rome has long taught that the highest and holiest ideal is not the faithful husband, father, mother, or craftsman who fulfills God’s calling in the world, but the cloistered monk—the one who abandons ordinary life to devote himself entirely to “spiritual” things. That same philosophy has seeped into Protestant pulpits. The ordinary man who works with his hands, raises his family, and worships faithfully in his local church hardly seems to count anymore. Instead, those who dedicate themselves “full-time” to religious work— who evangelize in spectacular fashion or who adopt a peculiar style of life that sets them apart from the common man—are treated as the “real” Christians, the gold standard of holiness. Thus, the worth of a believer is no longer measured by faithfulness in his God-given calling, but by whether he has attained to something “extra,” something supposedly higher and holier.
This creates a perverse irony: you are considered Christian precisely to the extent that you cease to be human. You are praised when you withdraw from common labor, when you dress differently, speak in pious clichés, or submit to the clergy’s artificial standards of holiness. In short, Protestants who denounce Rome in theory often practice Rome in reality. But the Apostle Paul was of another mind. By the Holy Spirit, he admonished every believer: “Only, as the Lord has assigned to each one, as God has called each, in this manner let him walk And so I direct in all the churches.” (1 Cor 7:17). Paul did not teach that the man who becomes a Christian must abandon his trade, forsake the plow, desert the classroom, or leave the marketplace to be “truly spiritual.” That may happen in exceptional cases, as when a man is called to the ministry, but it is the exception, not the rule (Jas 3:1).
What we need in these perilous times is not an exodus from ordinary callings but an invasion of them. Not retreat but advance in the civil sphere. Not monks fleeing into the hills but Christians standing firm in the public square, fulfilling their vocations with courage and conviction under Christ’s lordship. We must reject the false dogma that baptizes the civil sphere into the ecclesiastical and turns pastors into conscience tyrants who decry of what God has approved, “Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch!”— these are the commandments of men, not God (Col 2:21–23). The world does not need more Christians hiding from the fire. The world needs Christians who, in their callings, carry the water of the Word, quench the flames of lies, and shine as lights in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation. We must not pursue a Socinianism that conforms to the world but neither must we pursue the path of Anabaptists and flee from the natural order God has created for good; we are salt and salt must come into contact with the objects it hopes to cleanse, preserve, and flavor.
VII. Real-World Examples of Co-Belligerency
David in Philistia (1 Sam 29:1-11; 1 Chron 12:19)
Before he wore the crown, David wore the badge of a fugitive. Hunted by Saul, betrayed by his own people, and weary with exile, he found unlikely refuge—in the camp of the Philistines, Israel’s sworn enemies. And yet, in this moment of war, David co-belligerated himself with Philistine warlords to pursue a common enemy. He was willing—yes, even ready—to march into battle against Saul’s corrupt regime under a legitimate magistrate to uphold justice and secure God’s future kingdom. David was no compromiser. But neither was he a coward. He saw that evil in Saul’s Israel was no less evil than the godlessness of the Philistines. And when the lines of battle were drawn, he chose to fight with those who would allow him to stand for righteousness.
Reader, if you had stood in the ranks beside David, would you have sneered in pietistic horror and said, “How dare you march beside uncircumcised pagans?” Would you have denounced David as compromised, canceled him for strategic co-belligerence with unbelievers? Would you have taken a seat in the synagogue and muttered, “Better to die pure than to win with Philistines”? Or would you, like the mighty men of Ziklag, have followed the anointed king in battle, knowing that God's providence often works through unexpected means to tear down corrupt rulers and establish righteousness in the land? Would you have rebuked him for joining a military alliance with idolaters?
This is not compromise. This is co-belligerency. And the heart of the pietist is exposed in the day of battle—preferring pious retreat to righteous engagement, choosing clean hands over useful ones, even if it means letting God’s enemies rule unopposed.
The Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37)
When Jesus told the parable of the Good Samaritan, He was not giving a neutral moral tale—He was confronting the religious elite with their sanctimonious failure to love their neighbor. The priest and the Levite—men of pure doctrine, ceremonially clean, keepers of theological fidelity—passed by on the other side. Why? Because their ritual purity mattered more than mercy, more than love for their neighbors. Their theology forbade them from running to their neighbors’ aid. They refused to engage in the mess of common human suffering. Their sectarian pietism made them useless in a world set on fire.
And who did Christ commend? A Samaritan. A theological outsider. A covenantal enemy. A man whose worship was condemned in John 4. And yet, this Samaritan, moved by compassion, bound wounds, spent silver, partnered with a wicked inn-keeper, delayed his schedule, bore the burden of another—and in so doing, Jesus said: he fulfilled the law of love. The implication is clear: in the Civil sphere of mercy, God often uses outsiders to shame insiders. In the cause of civil good, a Samaritan may prove more obedient in loving his neighbor than a seminary graduate. Jesus makes a heretical outsider the moral hero because beyond the church walls we still have an obligation to love our neighbors. Reader, would you have been the Levite, refusing to act because of theological impurity?
VIII. Conclusion: Retreat is Not Righteousness
To retreat from the public square in the name of purity is to surrender the field to the enemy. Don Green’s view is logically and biblically inconsistent, collapsing all spheres into one and paralyzing the fruit of the Gospel: good works through Christian witness. If what Jesus teaches us in the parable of the Good Samaritan is true, then our accountability increases since there is not just one man left half dead, but countless in our nation. My hope and steadfast prayer is that Pastor Don and those who hold to his teachings on this matter will grow in grace and truth and approve what is good.
We will lock arms on the battlefield—but never at the altar. For we have been commanded, “Deliver those who are being taken away to death, And those who are stumbling to the slaughter, Oh hold them back” (Prov 24:11).
For an appendix on this article, click here.