Darryl Hart Is Wrong About Evans

D. Gnostic Hart writes,

Bill Evans is baaaaaaaaaack with another dismissive post about 2k. I am not sure why he grinds this ax, though I have ideas. Also, I detect another attempt to tarnish 2kers with unmentioned and unmentionable implications of their position — the guilt by association technique:

We will cheerfully admit that 2K advocates have some legitimate concerns, particularly that the mission and witness of the church not be hijacked by political and cultural agendas. But in this instance the cure is worse than the disease. While 2K theology may well scratch the itch of Christians who need a theological excuse to remain silent in current cultural conflicts, it is both less than biblical and less than faithful to the decided weight of the Reformed tradition.

Evans shows that he still does not understand 2k. Plenty of 2kers talk about law and politics. The point is for the church only to speak or declare what God has revealed, and in the case of gay marriage, for instance, the Bible does teach what marriage (is?), and that Israel and the church are to enforce biblical norms. But Scripture does not say what a constitutional republic’s marriage policy is supposed to be.

Darryl may have problems discerning these matters but John Calvin had no problem identifying what a constitutional Republic’s marriage policy is supposed to be. It is supposed to be in keeping with God’s revealed law-Word.

…“But this was sayde to the people of olde time. Yea, and God’s honour must not be diminished by us at this day: the reasons that I have alleadged alreadie doe serve as well for us as for them. Then lette us not thinke that this lawe is a speciall lawe for the Jewes; but let us understand that God intended to deliver to us a generall rule, to which we must tye ourselves…Sith it is so, it is to be concluded, not onely that is lawefull for all kinges and magistrates, to punish heretikes and such as have perverted the pure trueth; but also that they be bounde to doe it, and that they misbehave themselves towardes God, if they suffer errours to roust without redresse, and employ not their whole power to shewe a greater zeale in that behalfe than in all other things.”

Calvin, Sermons upon Deuteronomie, p. 541-542

Calvin’s pen seems pointed at the seditious and perilous Ana-baptists whose application of the judicials gave, not Godly commonwealth judicial laws, but anarchistic Münster judicial laws. It is interesting that Darryl’s position here and the Anabaptist position, which Calvin is writing against, seem to be one and the same.

Calvin also wrote on this topic,

“And for proof thereof, what is the cause that the heathen are so hardened in their own dotages? It is for that they never knew God’s Law, and therefore they never compared the truth with the untruth. But when God’s law come in place, then doth it appear that all the rest is but smoke insomuch that they which took themselves to be marvelous witty, are found to have been no better than besotted in their own beastliness. This is apparent. Wherefore let us mark well, that to discern that there is nothing but vanity in all worldly devices, we must know the Laws and ordinances of God. But if we rest upon men’s laws, surely it is not possible for us to judge rightly. Then must we need to first go to God’s school, and that will show us that when we have once profited under Him, it will be enough. That is all our perfection. And on the other side, we may despise all that is ever invented by man, seeing there is nothing but *fondness and uncertainty in them. And that is the cause why Moses terms them rightful ordinances. As if he should say, it is true indeed that other people have store of Laws: but there is no right at all in them, all is awry, all is crooked.”

* fondness = foolishness, weakness, want of sense and judgment

John Calvin
Sermons on Deuteronomy, sermon 21 on Deut. 4:6-9

Calvin again, contra Hart’s uncertainty,

“The let us not think that this Law is a special Law for the Jews; but let us understand that God intended to deliver us a general rule, to which we must yield ourselves … Since, it is so, it is to be concluded, not only that it is lawful for all kings and magistrates, to punish heretics and such as have perverted the pure truth; but also that they be bound to do it, and that they misbehave themselves towards God, if they suffer errors to rest without redress, and employ not their whole power to shew greater zeal in their behalf than in all other things.”

John Calvin, Sermon on Deuteronomy, sermon 87 on Deuteronomy 13:5

In another particularly prescient treatise for our labors against R2K, Calvin wrote against pacifistic Anabaptists (paging R2K fanboys) who maintained a doctrine of the spirituality of the Church which abrogated the binding authority of the case law,

“They (the Anabaptists) will reply, possibly, that the civil government of the people of Israel was a figure of the spiritual kingdom of Jesus Christ and lasted only until his coming, I will admit to them that in part, it was a figure, but I deny that it was nothing more than this, and not without reason. For in itself it was a political government, which is a requirement among all people. That such is the case, it is written of the Levitical priesthood that it had to come to an end and be abolished at the coming of our Lord Jesus (Heb. 7:12ff) Where is it written that the same is true of the external order? It is true that the scepter and government were to come from the tribe of Judah and the house of David, but that the government was to cease is manifestly contrary to Scripture.”

John Calvin
Treatise against the Anabaptists and against the Libertines, pp. 78-79

And for good measure on the same subject here is Turretin,

XI. “Although Christ did not commit his church to Tiberius, but to Peter, still he did not exclude princes from the care of religion (he called them nursing fathers); nor did he who said “Kiss the Son” repel kings as such. The ministry of the word is committed to pastors; but the care of the state no less to the magistrate; in which state if the church exists, why should not the pious magistrate as such both afford entertainment to the church and keep off the wolves, who in the name of pastors lay waste the flock? Otherwise, by the same argument, I shall have denied that the defense of religion belongs to the magistrate because he gave no commands about religion to Tiberius.”

Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, Vol.III, — 319

So, given these quotes from Calvin and Turretin we could wish that Darryl would be honest enough to quit calling himself a “Calvinist,” and go with some other moniker like “Gnostic,” “Anabaptist,” “Libertarian,” or “Manichean.” In the end if we have no word from Scripture on what the ethics of societal social orders are supposed to look like then we are left with a ethic for social orders that finds what is to be normative being determined by might makes right. Mao’s, “power grows out of the barrel of a gun,” becomes the norm for social order ethics.

D. G. Hart writes,

And this gets to the heart of the disagreement — not to mention where Evans not only fails to understand 2k but also the Reformed tradition. If the entire world is Christ’s kingdom, then we would expect all lawful authorities to enforce God’s revealed will. But the Bible tells us quite clearly that the entire world is not Christ’s kingdom — the world consists of believers and unbelievers.

One might think that there is a very strong suggestion here, by Darryl, giving us a Anabaptist paradigm. First, you have Christ’s Kingdom where all the believers are (Church). Then you have every place else that is “not Christ’s Kingdom” (i.e. — “The World”) However, unlike the Anabaptist paradigm in the “Not Christ’s Kingdom” you have both believers and unbelievers cheek by jowl. Let’s call that the mixed or common Kingdom.

Now, here’s the question? Where is Satan’s Kingdom in this two Kingdom model? Darryl and R2K tell us specifically that the World (presumably planet earth outside the Church) is neither Christ’s Kingdom nor Satan’s Kingdom but a common (neutral?) Kingdom. What we need to ask here then is ‘Where is Satan’s Kingdom?’ You know… the Kingdom of Darkness that Colossians 1 talks about Christians having been translated from? It can’t be the case that when men are translated from the Kingdom of Darkness to the Kingdom of God’s dear Son, that they have been translated from the R2K common Kingdom since believers and unbelievers exist together in the common Kingdom. It looks like R2K needs to go to a R3K model or join the Anabaptists in just calling the common Kingdom the evil world. Indeed, in point of fact, I am convinced that in R2K we have a kind of inconsistent Anabaptist hybrid where the R2K word “common” is merely exchanged for the Anabaptist word “evil,” in reference to “the world” which is not Christ’s Kingdom. Like the Anabaptists, R2K can dismiss “the world” as being a realm where Christian standards are not to be expected nor even applied while being, at the same time, a realm where the Church does not have to be concerned. Unlike the Anabaptist model R2K can still participate in “the world” as long as no absolute standards, as drawn from the Scriptures, are championed. Like the Anabaptists, R2K insists that the Church and Christ’s Kingdom are exactly coextensive. Unlike the Anabaptists, R2K allows Christians to work positively in “The World.” As I said, it looks that R2K is just a kind of hybrid of Anabaptist social order theory.

D. Gnostic Hart writes,

The Bible also tells us — contrary to mid-twentieth-century western foreign policy — that Israel no longer exists as the covenant people. The church is now the new Israel, and the church does not have temporal jurisdiction. That means that the church transcends national borders and magistrates’ rule. In other words, what goes on in the church is different from what goes on in the state — the state of Russia, the state of Canada, the state of Japan. Christian’s should expect the church to practice God’s law. But whether Christians should expect non-Christian governments to enforce God’s law upon people who do not fear God is a very complicated question.

Here Darryl is conflating things that should not be conflated. Even in OT Israel there was distinction made between the Church and the State. Israel was God’s covenant people but with their social order stratification there was maintained a distinction between Church and State. All this to say that where we find Biblical Christianity in the ascendancy in a Nation there we would expect to find Christian governance without Ecclesiastial governance. All because the Church is not given jurisdiction with the eclipse of Israel does not mean that there is no such thing as Christian governance.

What goes on in the Church is different than what goes on in the State and no adherent of vanilla Biblical Christianity would ever say otherwise. The Church hold the Keys. The State holds the sword. However, vanilla Christianity recognizes that the usage of the sword must be according to some transcendent absolute standard. This is why Biblical Christians in Japan, Russia, and Canada, all advocate for law rooted and grounded in God’s revelation, whether implicitly or explicitly. This really isn’t that complicated.

D. Gnostic Hart writes,

The problem is that Evans fudges this very question when he says — in direct contradiction of the Confession of Faith:

. . . the kingdom of God and the institutional church are wrongly equated by 2K advocates. There is a rough consensus among New Testament scholars that the kingdom of God is a much more comprehensive reality than the institutional church, and this misidentification of the church and the kingdom has all sorts of unfortunate results, such as confusion over the nature of “kingdom work” and the silencing of Christians from speaking to societal issues.

Well, how would Evans rewrite this if he considered what the Confession — pre-1788 revision — does say?

The visible church, which is also catholic or universal under the gospel (not confined to one nation, as before under the law), consists of all those throughout the world that profess the true religion; and of their children: and is the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ, the house and family of God, out of which there is no ordinary possibility of salvation. (25.2)

That’s not exactly the same thing as the kingdom of God. But when the Confession goes on to say — again, pre-1788 revision, “Unto this catholic visible church Christ hath given the ministry, oracles, and ordinances of God, for the gathering and perfecting of the saints, in this life, to the end of the world: and doth, by his own presence and Spirit, according to his promise, make them effectual thereunto, (25.3), it is saying that the kingdom of Christ and the visible church are doing something distinct from what the state or magistrate does — “the defense and encouragement of them that are good, and for the punishment of evildoers” (23.1). And this distinction between the spiritual nature of Christ’s kingdom (remember “my kingdom is not of this world” anyone?) and the temporal nature of the state’s rule, also explains why the Confession (pre-1788 revision again!) says the church should stay out of the state’s bee’s wax:

Synods and councils are to handle, or conclude nothing, but that which is ecclesiastical: and are not to intermeddle with civil affairs which concern the commonwealth, unless by way of humble petition in cases extraordinary; or, by way of advice, for satisfaction of conscience, if they be thereunto required by the civil magistrate. (31.4)

So the notion that 2k is outside the Reformed tradition on the nature of Christ’s kingdom is wrong.

1.) The evidence that the Kingdom of Christ and the Church are not identically synonymous in Reformed history and among Reformed Theologians is massive. Here are just a few quotes,

“The Kingdom may be said to be considered a broader concept than the Church, because the Kingdom aims at nothing less than the complete control of all the manifestations of life. It represents the dominion of God in every sphere of human endeavor.”

– Berkhof, Systematic Theology, pg. 570

“If professing Christians are unfaithful to the authority of their Lord in their capacity as citizens of the State, they cannot expect to be blessed by the indwelling of the Holy Ghost in their capacity as members of the Church. The kingdom of Christ is one, and cannot be divided in life or death. If the Church languishes, the State cannot be in health; and if the State rebels against its Lord and King, the Church cannot enjoy His favor. If the Holy Ghost is withdrawn from the Church, he is not present in the State; and if He, the ‘Lord, the Giver of life,’ be absent, then all order is impossible, and the elements of society lapse backward to primeval night and chaos.”

A.A. Hodge, Evangelical Theology

“The thought of the kingdom of God implies the subjection of the entire range of human life in all its forms and spheres to the ends of religion. The kingdom reminds us of the absoluteness, the pervasiveness, the unrestricted dominion, which of right belong to all true religion. It proclaims that religion, and religion alone, can act as the supreme unifying, centralizing factor in the life of man, as that which binds all together and perfects all by leading it to its final goal in the service of God.” (page 194)

Geerhardus Vos
The Teaching of Jesus Concerning the Kingdom of God and the Church

“Scripture is the Book of the Kingdom of God, not a book for this or that people, for the individual only, but for all nations, for all of humanity. It is not a book for one age, but for all times. It is a Kingdom book. Just as the Kingdom of God develops not alongside and above history, but in and through world history, so too Scripture must not be abstracted, nor viewed by itself, nor isolated from everything. Rather, Scripture must be brought into relationship with all our living, with the living of the entire human race. And Scripture must be employed to explain all of human living.”

Herman Bavinck,
“The Kingdom of God, The Highest Good”

For Darryl to suggest that the Confessions require us to read that the Reformed, like the Anabaptists, believed that the Kingdom and the Church are exactly co-extensive is just embarrassing.

2.) Clearly R2K is outside the historic voice of the Reformed Church. R2K is a complete innovation that is reading the Confessions and Reformed Church – State History through the cramped spectacles of Anabaptist hybrid “thinking.”

3.) Darryl, following the WCF, wants to rightly insist that the Church is not to involve itself in the affairs of the Magistrate but we are living in a time when it is not the case that the Church is involving itself in the affairs of the Magistrate so much as it is the case that the Church is telling the Magistrate that it can not involve itself in the affairs of the Church. The Church must speak a “thus saith the Lord” on issues that the State has taken up in contradiction to God’s voice. Issues like abortion, sodomite Marriage, property, etc. are issues that find the Magistrate meddling in the affairs of the Church more than it being the case where the Church is involving itself in the affairs of the Magistrate.

4.) Hart continues to butcher John 18:36. If Hart’s handling of the rest of Scripture is like his handling of John 18:36 people should absent themselves anytime he tries to teach Scripture. Darryl continues to try to appeal to John 18:36 as a proof text that Gnosticism is true. However, we learn from B. F. Wescott speaking of John 18:36 a very different understanding,

“Yet He (Jesus) did claim a sovereignty, a sovereignty of which the spring and the source was not of earth but of heaven. My Kingdom is not of this world (means it) does not derive its origin or its support from earthly sources.”

The Gospel According To John — pg. 260

D. Gnostic Hart writes,

“In fact, those who expand the kingdom the way that Evans does under the influence of either Kuyper’s every-square-inchism or Finney’s millenialism are the ones who are outside the Reformed tradition and who threaten the gospel.

Read again, almost all the earlier quotes I have given in this post. Darryl Hart has just said that all those chaps are outside the Reformed tradition and that they all threaten the Gospel. Darryl, in saying this, reveals his “theology” as stupid.

D. Gnostic Hart writes,

And this goes to the heart of what animates 2k — a desire to preserve the integrity of the gospel and the church’s witness by not identifying the gospel or Christian witness with matters that are not Christian or redemptive but are common or related to general revelation. Once you begin to expand the kingdom as Evans so glibly does, you wind up doing what Protestant liberals did when they attributed to economics or agriculture or medicine on the mission field redemptive significance or what Social Gospelers did when they identified Progressive policies as signs of the coming of the kingdom. Only the church has the keys of the kingdom and all the Reformed confessions state explicitly that the magistrate may not hold them.

That means that the kingdom of Christ comes through the ministry of the church, not through the administration of the state or the advancement of Western Civilization or the building of the metropolis. Preaching and the sacraments establish the spiritual kingdom, not Broadway, the Tea Party, or a Supreme Court ruling.

1.) Darryl assumes what he has yet to prove and that is the idea there are matters that can never be “Christian.” Darryl assumes that there are realities that can be neutral and not animated by Theology. This is in no way true and if that is not true every thing he says that follows from that is likewise not true.

2.) Darryl with his Anabaptist identifying of the Kingdom as exactly coextensive with the Church accuses Evans of being Liberal. Think about it.

3.) The fact that the Magistrate does not hold the Keys to the Kingdom does not mean the Magistrate can not act in a Christian manner. No vanilla Christian desires to see the Magistrate hold the Keys. No vanilla Christian sees the Magistrates work as being “redemptive.” However it is possible for Magistrates to wield the sword and so provide justice in a way that is in keeping with Biblical Revelation.

4.) It is R2K that destroys the Gospel. R2K allows an alien theology to shape the zeitgeist so that all our thought categories are conditioned by that alien theology. Then Darryl expects that, despite that alien theology creating a culture hostile to Biblical Christianity, that the Church will remain unaffected by that hostility and false theology so that it can herald a clear Gospel message. Our contemporary setting screams that Darryl is wrong. Church Growth, Emergent, Pentecostal, Arminian, R2K,etc. churches all demonstrate that the zeitgeist pagan theology is shaping our Churches and so our Christianity. Pentecostalism is shaped by animistic theology. Emergent by cultural Marxist theology. And R2K by libertarian / Anabaptist theology. In point of fact the only Christian Churches which are swimming upstream in this miasma of lunacy are those Churches who understand the Biblical Christianity makes truth claims that impact every area of life.

With A Half-Twist

A reductio on an article that ran in a Reformed Denominational magazine. As originally published it found the word “homosexuality,” or “gay” wherever you find the word Necrophilia in my reductio.

by Name withheld

February 21, 2014 — I am a Christian. I was born and raised in a Reformed Church and educated in its schools from kindergarten through college. I am also a Necrophiliac. These two characteristics define my life more than anything else: more than my education, career, marital status, or the number of children I may have.

As a Necrophiliac Christian, I am an oxymoron to many.

I do not easily embrace myself as a necrophiliac man. I’ve only come to do that after many years of wrestling with the Scriptures, with God, with myself. I sought counsel from pastors and Christian therapists, tried ex-necrophiliacs for Jesus ministries and every reparative therapy program I could find. I begged God to change me and in despair attempted suicide. I studied every angle of the questions “How do I become ‘not necrophiliac’?” and “What must I do to love alive people?” In my study of Scripture, I wrestled with the passages interpreted to condemn Necrophiliac behavior, with creation order, the nature of sin, and the process of sanctification. And I prayed. My sexual orientation did not change.

Like every other Necrophiliac person in my Reformed denomination, I am mindful of my church’s understanding of Necrophilia. “Love the sinner, hate the sin” is a cliché implying that I am sin personified. Tony Campolo has observed that Jesus says the opposite: “Love the sinner and hate your own sin. And after you get rid of the sin in your own life, then you can begin talking about the sin in your brother or sister’s life.” Obviously therefore it is wrong for any sinner to denounce necrophilia as aberrant. I wish the Church would learn that. After all, the Church is full of sinners just like me. Our sins may vary but since we are all sinners no one should be allowed to denounce another person’s “sin.” (Unless of course we are denouncing the sinners who denounce other people’s sins or when we are denouncing Necro-phobia.)

Meanwhile, where have all the necrophiliac sons and daughters of your church gone? Many—I dare say most—have left your churches and your hometowns. Their church home became unsafe when they—like me—learned the pastor’s response to people like us.

It may surprise you that there is a deep spiritual longing within my necrophiliac friends, a longing and a struggle to reconcile “Jesus loves me, this I know” with an attribute that many in the church consider an abomination. My friends grew up loving God—that has not changed. But as a result of being rejected, many have given up on the church, and, tragically, on God.

The culture has is sure to change. Necrophiliac marriage is sure to become legal in Canada and in some states. The U.S. Supreme Court will one day surely strike down any laws forbidding necrophilia. The Boy Scouts of America one day will have special merit badges for sharing a sleeping bag with the dead. I foresee the day when celebrities, athletes, and business leaders will “come out.”

The church seems unprepared to respond to these situations legally and with moral authority. How do congregations pick up the pieces of shattered families after the failure of mixed-orientation marriages of necrophiliac people who enter into a heterosexual marriage, believing that it would make them acceptable to God and the church? How do they welcome necrophiliac couples who attend services or who wish to be married in the church?

My understanding of the Scriptures has changed dramatically over the years. If “insanity” is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results, I was going insane seeking “freedom” from being a necrophiliac. Jesus confronted me with the words “I have come to give life and life abundant” (John 10:10). These words trumped “abomination theology.”

Coming out has not been easy—for me or for my family. But it has brought life.

Isn’t it time for the church to welcome back its necrophiliac sons and daughters, along with their spouses and children? Isn’t it time to encourage everyone to know the love of God for each and every one of his children?

Critiquing Kirsten Powers’ Christian Analysis

Kirsten Powers is a info-babe on FOX News. Her politics are left and her religion is allegedly Christian. She’s all the rage of much of the pop Christianity crowd. In a recent USA article she took up for sodomite marriage.

Below I fisk Kirsten’s article,

KP wrote,

What’s the matter with Kansas? A bill protecting the religious freedom of businesses and individuals to refuse services to same-sex couples passed the state House of Representatives last week. It was blessedly killed in the state Senate on Tuesday.

Similar bills have cropped up in a half-dozen states in an effort to protect anti-gay religious believers against lawsuits. A florist in Washington state, a Colorado baker and a New Mexico photographer have been sued for refusing to serve gay couples getting married. They say to do so would be to “celebrate” nuptials at odds with their Christian faith.

Bret responds,

Now note here that suits are being brought against private businesses because they refused to sell their services / products to people. Is Powers really suggesting that private businesses ought to be forced, against their will, to engage in commerce with people whose money they do not want? Is Powers advancing the idea that the State can again deny citizens their freedom of association?

Isn’t Powers and people like her tolerant enough to allow people the liberty to make their own decisions? Should all florists, bakers, and photographers be forced into business contract or is it not enough to allow the free market to provide florists, bakers, and photographers who want the money of perverts?

What is the matter with Powers that she would ask what is the matter with Kansas? What is the matter with Powers that she finds it so difficult to understand that some Christians take their faith seriously enough that they don’t want to be associated with absurdity and perversity?

KP wrote,

It’s probably news to most married people that their florist and caterer were celebrating their wedding union. Most people think they just hired a vendor to provide a service. It’s not clear why some Christian vendors are so confused about their role here.

Whether Christians have the legal right to discriminate should be a moot point because Christianity doesn’t prohibit serving a gay couple getting married. Jesus calls his followers to be servants to all. Nor does the Bible call service to another an affirmation.

Bret responds,

1.) It’s probably news to most info-babe desk jockeys that some businesses have standards beyond making a buck. It is probably news to most info-babes who read monitors for a living that there exist businessmen in this country who realize that their tacit acceptance of sodomy in the social order — as seen in their providing a service — is not something they want to countenance even if they wouldn’t be directly celebrating a wedding union. (Oh, and by the way, we do not concede that it is even possible for two people of the same sex to get married.)

2.) But Christianity does prohibit sodomy in the strongest of terms and despite Powers inability to connect the dots some people can connect the dots enough to see that providing business goods to sodomites is one way that a Christian can indirectly support what Scripture prohibits. One wonders if Powers would be OK with a businessman selling cutlery to Jack the Ripper? After all, Scripture does not prohibit selling cutlery to those who use knives to rip open women.

3.) Jesus does call to be a servant of all within the context of Biblical law. To suggest that we, by our goods and services, must indirectly facilitate and sanction criminal behavior because we are to be “servants of all” is to ridiculous to contemplate.

4.) Creating a social order context where criminal behavior is approved of and celebrated is indeed an affirmation, Powers protestation to the contrary notwithstanding.

KP wrote,

Adam Hamilton, pastor of the United Methodist Church of the Resurrection, the largest church in Kansas, pointed out to me what all Christians should know: “Jesus routinely healed, fed and ministered to people whose personal lifestyle he likely disagreed with.” This put Jesus at odds with religious leaders, who believed they were sullied by associating with the “wrong” people.

Hamilton suggested that “if this legislation were to pass … those who wish to refuse service to gay and lesbian people (should be required) to publicly post (their policy). This would allow gay and lesbian people and all other patrons to know before entering a business.”

He’s right. Christians backing this bill are essentially arguing for homosexual Jim Crow laws.

Bret responds,

1.) Jesus did eat with the outcasts but the difference between who Jesus ate with in 1st century Palestine and providing a service today that helps create a social order that embraces sodomy is that those that Jesus ate with understood themselves to be outcasts and sinners. This is largely not true today. Instead the contemporary perverted are proud of their perversion and deny the sinfulness and criminality of their behavior. Would Jesus have dined with those who would have told him to go penetrate Himself because of his insistence that sodomy is sin? To ask the question is to answer it.

2.) Throughout the Scriptures when Jesus speaks, heals, and consorts with sinners he is constantly calling them to repentance or they show up in the context of their repenting. Contemporary sodomites are not a particularly repenting lot.

3.) It terms of Powers “Jim Crow Laws” quip, it should be asked if she is suggesting that any kind of discrimination is automatically out of bounds for businesses? Should businesses be forced to sell Kiddie Cheerleader Outfits to Pedophiles who want to dress up 8 year old little boys or girls in order to live out their sexual fantasy? Would it be a bad thing to embrace Pedophile Jim Crow laws? If it is not a bad thing to embrace Pedophile Jim Crow laws then what is the problem with embracing sodomy Jim Crow laws? You see, Powers whole question presupposes the normalcy of this behavior but sodomy is every bit as criminal as Pedophilia even if people like Powers have become so acclimated to it that they can no longer see its criminality.

KP wrote,

Evangelical pastor Andy Stanley leads North Point Ministries, the second largest church in the U.S. He told me he finds it “offensive that Christians would leverage faith to support the Kansas law.” He said, “Serving people we don’t see eye to eye with is the essence of Christianity. Jesus died for a world with which he didn’t see eye to eye. If a bakery doesn’t want to sell its products to a gay couple, it’s their business. Literally. But leave Jesus out of it.”

Christians serve unrepentant murderers through prison ministry. So why can’t they provide a service for a same-sex marriage?

1.) Serving people we don’t see eye to eye with is the essence of Christianity? I thought the essence of Christianity was the finished work of Jesus Christ for sinners like me?

2.) If serving people we don’t see eye to eye with is the essence of Christianity was Jesus being un-Christian when He drove the Bankers out of the Temple with a whip?

3.) Stanley wants to leave Jesus in it when he suggests that Businesses should sell their services to sodomites but he wants to leave Jesus out of it when businesses don’t want to provide services for sodomite marriages. Curious reasoning that.

4.) I would be glad to serve in a prison ministry to unrepentant sodomites who are incarcerated for their crimes.

5.) Christians serve unrepentant murderers though prison ministry. So why can’t they provide a service for Necrophiliacs and people into Bestiality? Stupid Christians.

You see the problem throughut Powers’ article is she assumes that this is something that our social order should be fine with. As such, since we should be fine with it we should be tolerant enough to get with the program. Christians, on the other hand, are not fine with the normalizing of sodomy for our social order that Powers desires to embrace. As long as she, and others like her, are going to assume that this is normal, we will never be able to agree.

KP wrote,

Some claim it’s because marriage is so sacred. But double standards abound. Christian bakers don’t interrogate wedding clients to make sure their behavior comports with the Bible. If they did, they’d be out of business. Stanley said, “Jesus taught that if a person is divorced and gets remarried, it’s adultery. So if (Christians) don’t have a problem doing business with people getting remarried, why refuse to do business with gays and lesbians.”

Maybe they should just ask themselves, “What would Jesus do?” I think he’d bake the cake.

Here Powers notes inconsistency and then argues that all because people are inconsistent by serving some people that they may well should not serve therefore they should serve others that they should not serve. The problem in this scenario is not in Christian businesses not serving sodomite marriage. The problem is that they do serve lecherous marriages.

Of course it is far more obvious when two men show up at your bakery giggling about marriage to know what the score is then to know what the score is when a man and woman walk in who have committed adultery and are now going to be married, having left their former spouse. It is a bit much to expect a business to interview its clientele about their morality but one doesn’t have to interrogate about morality when two men show up talking about how they are going to tie the knot. As such Powers last point is merely special pleading.

The Shortfalls of Movement Libertarianism

Dear Pastor,

I just read an article making the case that Libertarians make good Christians.

Why Christians Make Great Libertarians

I know you like to say that Libertariansim is good as far as it goes but that when it is seen as a system authoritative in itself that it is a positive evil. Could you explain, in your estimation why it is the case that Libertarians who have embraced movement Libertarianism don’t make good Christians?

Leland

Dear Leland,

Thank you for the opportunity to deal with this again. I do think that Libertarianism does at points coincide with Biblical Christianity but as a ideological movement it is opposed to Biblical Christianity. Biblical Christians and Libertarians, for example, both agree that the State should be minimal. However, movement Libertarianism tends to absolutize the individual while Biblical Christianity absolutizes God. As such because of these different absolutes the definition of liberty is different for each. For the movement Libertarian liberty is largely defined by something they call the Non Aggression Principle whereas for the Biblical Christian Liberty is that behavior which is lived out consistent with God’s Law Word. Here are some other ways in which I can see that movement Libertarianism is not consistent with Biblical Christianity.

1.) Movement Libertarians absolutize Liberty so that it turns into anarchy. (Each man does what is right in his own eyes.) Biblical Liberty is ordered liberty — ordered by God’s law word.

2.) Libertarians turn man from Homo Adorans (man the worshiper) into Homo oeconomicus (man the economic being). Movement libertarian reduce man to the sum of his market decisions and turn his whole being into one of economics. Biblical Christians do not see man as primarily an economic being and so the thinking of Biblical Christians on social order issues does not reduce man to the sum of his economic decisions.

3.) Movement Libertarians have no standard by which to measure Liberty except the sovereign autonomous self and its fiat word. Libertarianism insists on doing that which is good for the individual but that which is defined as good in only in reference to the individual.

4.) Movement Libertarainism atomizes man and completely misses His covenant jurisdictions. As such men become free floating integers that are not inherently connected to any covenantal identity. If Socialism makes the mistake of seeing man only as part of the hive, movement Libertarianism makes the mistake of seeing only man as unrelated to anything but his own subjective self (ego).

5.) Libertarians don’t make good Christians because as Rushdoony taught Libertarianism is merely the flip side of the coin to Marxism. Marxism and Movement Libertarianism presuppose one another. Neither get correct the One and the Many and in getting the One and the Many wrong they serve the purposes of each other’s errors in that regard.

Thanks for writing Leland,

The Conservative Church’s Function In The Declining West

The majority visible “conservative” “Christian” Church in the West really serves the purpose of codifying progressive change as “Holy,” thus soothing the conscience of the member practitioners.

Think about it.

At one time the Church stood against Birth Control. Progressives pushed Birth control and mainstreamed it and the Church finally went along thus sanctifying Birth control for the membership while at the same time soothing the membership conscience in terms of practicing something that had previously been considered “sin.”

At one time the Church almost universally stood against divorce in most circumstances. Progressives pushed the boundaries of divorce even unto the legislating of “no-fault” divorce and the Church finally went along thus sanctifying divorce for the membership while at the same time soothing the membership conscience in terms of securing no-fault divorces that in previous generations would have been considered sin.

At one time the Church almost universally stood against sodomite Marriages in all circumstances. Progressives have pushed this boundary and within 10-15 years couples in sodomite marriage will be accepted as members in many, if not most, “conservative” Churches. The Church thus will sanctify, once again, the success of the Christ hating progressives and will serve as the cultural agent that soothes the conscience of the rank and file membership that the members really are servants of the Lord Christ despite their Birth control, divorces, and acceptance of, and participation in sodomite marriages.

Other examples could be enumerated but we see here that the Church still has a function in the culture. It’s function is to help the rank and file be comfortable with the direction that the Christ haters are pushing the culture. The Church convinces us that we can be comfortable and well adjusted in a culture that is insane.

To be sure, the Church often comes kicking and screaming to it new position but it realizes that if it wants to survive, pay the bills and the Pastor’s salary, and keep the bureaucracy rolling it must eventually give in the success of the cultural Marxists and make declaration that matters which were once considered sin are no longer considered sin and are even positive virtues.