More On Sodomite Chic(ken)

One of the people I serve in Christ’s congregation sent me this link below as it was sent to them by one of their “liberal friends.” The young lady who sent it to me said she was “interested in my thoughts.”

So here are my thoughts.

Debate #2 — They Just Don’t Get It

Sodomite Supporter (SS) says,

“My hope here is to find common ground with those who have disagreed with me on the issue, and maybe to persuade. It’s not to ridicule or to best.”

Bret responds,

Remember one of our motifs as Christians is that all ground is common ground though no ground is neutral ground. We have common ground with all people because all of this world is God’s world and no Christ-hater can escape God’s ground. However, as we shall see, there is no neutral ground where we can stand together. Especially in a worldview clash, such as the whole Chick-Fil-A (CFA) imbroglio where it has been revealed there is no ground where the adversaries can find mutual footing.

Secondly, the writer is being ingenuousness when he says he is not trying to “best,” with this article. Of course he is trying to best. He is seeking to carry the day with his apologetic.

SS

“So, in the interest of common ground, let’s start here: I acknowledge the absurdity of all this debate.

It’s definitely strange to have days-long Facebook debates flare up everywhere over a chicken sandwich. The anger, sarcasm, and hurt feelings on display seem strange or even laughable because most people have seen Chick-Fil-A as just a restaurant with a funny ad campaign. I’ll get into some of the whys and wherefores of that later. But, for now, let’s just say that, yes. It can seem ridiculous to get all worked up over fast-food chicken.”

But of course the debate is not absurd and it is definitely not about fast-food chicken. The CEO of CFA could have been selling chalk, or yachts, or hairpins and this issue would have been with us. It is hard to believe this person really believes this debate is flaring up over a chicken sandwich.

SS

“Let’s also agree that this isn’t about curtailing anyone’s rights under First Amendment. The Constitution is a legal document. This is not a legal argument. No one is arguing that Chik-fil-A CEO Dan Cathy should be put in prison, or silenced, or censored by the government. This has nothing to do with government censorship or government abridgment of Freedom of Speech. So don’t worry: the ability of this millionaire to legally spend his millions as he sees fit is not in jeopardy. You need not defend it.”

Bret

Actually this is, in part, precisely about 1st amendment rights. Now, the LGBT crowd has not yet mustered the strength to constitutionally silence people, however, the reason the LGBT crowd has gone after CFA is that it is giving millions of dollars to organizations who oppose their agenda. If they can silence CFA by restricting their growth through closing cities like Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, etc. from CFA they can financially wound CFA and thus send a message to other businesses that might themselves oppose the LGBT agenda that speaking out against the LGBT agenda will destroy your company. As such, while this is not about Dejure 1st amendment rights this is about defacto 1st amendment rights. CFA is being told in essence, “if you support those who oppose you we are going to silence you by shutting you down. If successful, the LGBT agenda also achieves the ability to reinforce PC speech. If successful by seeking to shut down CFA the LGBT agenda would be extended by everyone realizing that speaking out against sodomy is not socially acceptable and can end in personal or economic ruination.

People need to realize how powerful this LGBT agenda has become. They are using their propaganda in the government schools to socially engineer children. They are well ensconced in many of the Church denominations. They are politically well connected as can be seen in their ability to turn the US military into their bacchanalia playground. The attempt is to mainstream social deviance and to make anybody who speaks out against this deviance to be seen as the deviant.

SS

Now, let’s get to the nitty-gritty of things. Please read carefully. These things have been said before, but not by me, and not all in one place. Please read with an open mind. If you can’t read with an open mind, please leave, take a minute, come back, and try again. If you can’t do that, then please don’t bother. Please read all of the words here, rather than just reading half of the argument and assuming you know what I’m saying. Read these words as they are written. Again, if you don’t want to read my words, then don’t continue.

Bret

And of course, reading with “an open mind” here means, “read in such a way that you will agree with me.”

So here goes:

1. “This isn’t simply about marriage. Shocker, right? It’s extremely frustrating that same-sex marriage is the great continental divide. People are judged according to how they stand on this issue, as if no other issue matters. Did you know that a person can be for same-sex marriage and still be homophobic? Did you know that a person can be against same-sex marriage and be gay? We all get categorized very quickly based on the marriage issue and maybe that’s not fair. But here’s what you should know:”

Bret

Other issues do matter but the LGBT crowd are the ones who are trying to force this down our collective craw and so it should not be a surprise that this has become the issue it has. If someone is, at every turn, seeking to mainstream deviancy then they should not be surprised that at every turn resistance to that project is what they see. It is the LGBT crowd who are responsible for creating a climate where people act as if no other issue matters because for them it is the only issue that matters.

The other issues he brings up in terms of how different people can believe differently is irrelevant. It is just smoke to obfuscate the issue at hand.

SS

– In 29 states in America today, my partner of 18 years, Cody, or I could be fired for being gay. Period. No questions asked. One of those states is Louisiana, our home state. We live in self-imposed exile from beloved homeland, family, and friends, in part, because of this legal restriction on our ability to live our lives together.

Bret responds

So? So what? Sodomites have chosen their paths. The states also have laws against bestiality and necrophilia and pedophilia. Are we to feel sorry for those deviants all because the laws of the states against that criminal behavior inconveniences said perverts? Sodomy is a criminal behavior. Period. Why should we feel sorry for criminals who are inconvenienced by their criminal behavior being outlawed? The only reason this kind of plea for sympathy works is because people no longer understand sodomy to be a mental illness — something that it was designated as by the American Psychiatric Association until 1973.

Understand that the law in those 29 states is what it is, in part, because that law retains the vestiges of an older law order that was more intimately related to Christianity and so understood the destructive power of sodomy to a well functioning social order. Those laws that are being protested by this writer were put in place in order to protect the family unit because the legislators who passed those laws understood, on some level, that if sodomy were allowed to flourish that would mean the shriveling up of a healthy social order. Sodomy was understood to be a contagion that if allowed to prosper would be a plague upon the whole social order, upon families, and upon children.

And that is precisely what has happened as that contagion has been allowed to spread.

SS

– “In 75 countries in the world, being gay is illegal. In many, the penalty is life in prison. These are countries we can’t openly visit. In 9 countries, being gay is punishable by death. In many others, violence against gays is tacitly accepted by the authorities. These are countries where we would be killed. Killed.”

Bret,

And likewise Scripture called for the death penalty for sodomites.

In my world serial adultery would be illegal and serial adulterers would be penalized with prison. Serial adulterers should have countries they can’t openly visit. All that to say, I don’t think criminalizing sodomy is something that is criminal or is a reality that an enlightened person would or should be put off by. However, because our culture has been so propagandized by the LGBT spin this kind of “feel sorry for me” argument offered above gets traction with people who have more sentimentalism than they do wisdom.

We don’t allow necrophilia. We don’t allow pedophilia (witness Jerry Sandusky). We don’t allow Bestiality. Why should we allow sodomy to flourish in our country? They are all equally deviant.

SS writes,

– “Two organizations that work very hard to maintain this status quo and roll back any protections that we may have are the Family Research Council and the Marriage & Family Foundation. For example, the Family Research council leadership has officially stated that same-gender-loving behavior should be criminalized in this country. They draw their pay, in part, from the donations of companies like Chick-Fil-A. Both groups have also done “missionary” work abroad that served to strengthen and promote criminalization of same-sex relations.

– Chick-Fil-A has given roughly $5M to these organizations to support their work.

– Chick-Fil-A’s money comes from the profits they make when you purchase their products.”

Bret responds,

And here you see why CFA must be shut down. CFA must be shut down because they have a different standard of ethics than the LGBT crowd has. CFA looks to Scripture for a plumb-line on this issue to determine right and wrong while the LGBT crowd looks to their own perverted autonomous libido to determine right from wrong.

SS,

2. “This isn’t about mutual tolerance because there’s nothing mutual about it. If we agree to disagree on this issue, you walk away a full member of this society and I don’t. There is no “live and let live” on this issue because Dan Cathy is spending millions to very specifically NOT let me live. I’m not trying to do that to him.

Bret,

I don’t tolerate criminal perverted behavior, and I don’t expect the person who has embraced criminal and perverted behavior to tolerate those who recognize and point out their criminal and perverted behavior. In short, I don’t want mutual tolerance. I want to see perversion stuffed back into the closet. I want to go back to the time when sodomy was “the love that dare not speak it’s name,” as opposed to the current times when sodomy “won’t shut the hell up.”

SS

“Asking for “mutual tolerance” on this like running up to a bully beating a kid to death on the playground and scolding them both for not getting along. I’m not trying to dissolve Mr. Cathy’s marriage or make his sex illegal. I’m not trying to make him a second-class citizen, or get him killed. He’s doing that to me, folks; I’m just fighting back.

All your life, you’re told to stand up to bullies, but when WE do it, we’re told WE are the ones being intolerant? Well, okay. Yes. I refuse to tolerate getting my ass kicked. “Guilty as charged.”

But what are you guilty of? When you see a bully beating up a smaller kid and you don’t take a side, then you ARE taking a side. You’re siding with the bully. And when you cheer him on, you’re revealing something about your own character that really is a shame.

Bret,

Actually, the LGBT crowd is trying to dissolve Mr. Cathy’s marriage, and all marriages, as they seek to redefine what marriage is. If marriage can mean everything than it means nothing.

However SS is right in that this is not an issue where mutual tolerance can work. The LGBT crowd has made that clear in their attack on heterosexuality in the Government schools. I believe this culture cannot endure, permanently, half sodomite and half heterosexual. This is, as we are increasingly seeing, a irrepressible conflict.

And let us be clear here that it is the criminal perverted sodomites who are the bully in this scenario. Is someone a bully who is merely seeking to defend a non perverted social order? Is someone a bully who seeks to protect and defend his children and family from the sick twisted mindset that drives said sexual perversion?

SS

3. “This isn’t about Jesus. I have a lot of Christian friends. Most of them are of the liberal variety, it’s true, but even this concept seems lost on some of you. Most of them are pro-LGBT rights. Pro-gay and Pro-Christ are NOT mutually exclusive. They never have been, in the history of Christianity, though it’s been difficult at times. It’s not impossible to be both.

If someone is telling you it is, then maybe you should wonder why they’d do that. I see divorced Christians, remarried Christians, drug addict Christians. I see people with WWJD bracelets bumping and grinding on TV and raking in millions to do it. I see greedy, rapacious, vengeful people who are Christians. And these people are accepted in the Church, and the Church does very little to combat them. Sometimes it seems like being gay is the ONLY thing certain modern Christian movements won’t allow. Why’s that, I wonder?

Jesus had almost nothing to say about sexual behavior of any kind. He was too busy teaching more important things. Empathy is at the heart of his teachings. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Remember that? It’s in red. So let’s examine that:

Bret responds,

A.) It is about Jesus. Scripture clearly teaches that sodomy is vile and heinous sin. Granted, so is serial adultery and pride, and cowardice, and sloth, and unbelief and many other peccadilloes, but we are left constantly talking about sodomy precisely because sodomy has become so well organized in its attack on Biblical Christianity and Jesus.

It is about Jesus. Pro-gay, Pro-LGBT rights and pro Jesus are definitely mutually exclusive. Anybody who states anything to the contrary is serving a Jesus cast in their own image and not the Jesus that who has made His mind known in Scripture. It is impossible to be both pro Jesus Christ and pro sodomy.

B.) The reason why the Church has to spend so much time combating buggery is because buggery has become so efficiently organized to advance its cause and has been so successful in its agenda. If there were powerful organizations that taught that pride was pleasing to God and was a positive good, or that lying was pleasing to God and was a positive good, or that adultery was pleasing to God and was a positive good then the Church would have to repeatedly return to castigate such insane, abysmal and non Christian positions.

C.) The fact that there are so many Christians that fail to live up to what they are called to live up to does not give license to the Church to go silent about the sin of sodomy. The fact that the Church wrongly accepts some people’s vile behavior doesn’t mean that it should accept all people’s vile behavior. The failure here isn’t in condemning sodomy. The failure here is in not condemning the other sins that our resident sodomite author lists. It is not unfair that sodomy is singled out as sin simply because it is sin. What is unfair is that the other listed sins are not pointed out. If I get a speeding ticket for going 20 mph over the speed limit while everyone else around me is going 30 mph over the speed limit it is not unfair that I was issued a ticket. I got what I deserved. Just so, even though there are numerous other sins allegedly going on in the Church un=addressed it does not make it unfair if sodomy alone is addressed because sodomy deserves to be addressed even if the other sins wrongly are not addressed.

D.) Jesus did speak to the issue of sexuality with the woman at the well issue in John 4 and with the woman caught in adultery in John 8. In both cases He said or implied it was sin.

E.) Those who oppose sodomy are being empathetic. They are being empathetic towards those who are going to be caught up in the sodomy lifestyle because sodomy is not being opposed. They are being empathetic towards God who has made His mind about sodomy known. Finally, they are being empathetic towards the sodomite because there is no love in turning a blind eye to someone created in the image of God as they destroy themselves.

SS

4. “If things were reversed, I’d stand up for you.

Please think about this: How would you feel if KFC came out tomorrow and said they were spending money against equality for Asian Americans, or African Americans, or religious people? Really. Think about it. What would you do? How would you feel? How would you feel if, after their announcement, there was a big increase in KFC sales and I was all over Facebook supporting KFC. Please stop reading right now and imagine this. I’m serious.

You can stop now because it’s ludicrous. It would never happen.

Oh, I don’t mean the part about KFC being against some group. That COULD happen. I mean the part about me supporting them. Let me tell you something, and you can damn well believe it: I’d sign on for the boycott IMMEDIATELY.

Why? Well, because I believe in equality for all people, that’s why. But also, personally, from the bottom of my heart: because you are my friend, and I don’t willingly support people who harm you for just being you. How could I? How could I, really? But, more importantly for our purposes, how could you?”

Bret responds

A.) Sodomy is not the same as being Asian, African, etc. Scripture nowhere claims that being of a set people group is criminal or perverted. It does point out that sodomy is criminal, perverted, and sin. So, the examples don’t wash.

B.) It is not possible to be against religious people, since by definition all people are religious.

C.) Of course I would be outraged if people were trying to stamp out Christianity just as Christianity is trying to stamp out sodomy. I don’t expect sodomites to not be outraged because they are rightfully being opposed by Christians, and I don’t expect sodomites to not act all wounded and hurt while invoking silly arguments about the roles being reversed.

D.) And we oppose you and support CFA because we love you. I know you can’t see that. I know that it all looks like hate to you given your worldview but if we were to allow you and yours, along with your belief system to conquer then we would sanction your own personal self destruction as well as the destruction of countless other people who will be caught up in your successful attempt to homosexualize this culture. You need help. I know you don’t see that and can’t admit it but the fact is that you need help. Only the forgiveness found in Jesus Christ can deliver you from the unrelieved guilt you are carrying that is driving your behavior. However, you must first admit what you already know and that is your behavior is sin and rebellion against your Creator. If you will admit your sin and repent you can be confident that you will be received by the Christ of the Bible as one who is weary and heavy laden. He will accept you. He will receive you. He will own you as one of His own. But if you will not surrender there is nothing but the promise of fearful judgment being stored up against you.

E.) I don’t believe in equality for all people. I don’t believe in equality for the mass murderer. I don’t believe in equality for the pedophile (Jerry Sandusky) and I don’t believe in equality for those who practice the crime of sodomy.

SS,

Seriously, how could you? What has Chick-Fil-A ever done for you? Sold you some fatty chicken at a ridiculous mark-up? Made you chuckle at semi-literate cartoon cows? You mean more to me than KFC possibly could. If I, in turn, don’t mean more to you than a chicken sandwich from Chik-Fil-A–if my life, my quality of life, and my dignity are such afterthoughts to you that you’d not only refuse the boycott, but go out of your way to support someone who was hurting me? if I let this stand, if I don’t stand up to the bullies and if I let my friends egg the bullies on, what does that make me?

Well, it makes me a Chikin.

Yeah, so suddenly it is cause for anger, ridiculous or not.”

Bret responds,

It is not about a fast food restaurant meaning more to me than you. It is about God’s glory meaning more to me than you. It is about your restoration meaning more to me than your self inflicted destruction. It is about unknown to me children meaning more to me than you — children who are likely to be caught up in your destructive lifestyle all because I was bullied into keeping silent. I will not be bullied and I will not be silent. Your lifestyle is sin and God commands you to repent and I would be unfaithful to Him and you if I just turned a blind eye to the attempt of the LGBT crowd to push God out to the corners of the reality.

SS writes,

“But I’m not going to stop being Facebook friends with anyone over this issue.

Instead, I will remain. And, when you see my face with my partner’s in my profile, maybe you will examine not simply what your opinions are about gay people, or gay marriage, or the first amendment, even; maybe you’ll examine not merely your opinions but your values. What is friendship to you? What is loyalty? How important are human life and dignity to you? Are they more important than fitting in with your social group? Are they more important than loyalty to a corporate brand, or a political party, or some misguided church teaching?

Bret,

It is precisely my values that drives me in all this. Scripture teaches me that “Friendship with the world is enmity towards God,” and right now friendship with you, apart from laying out your abomination, would be enmity (hatred) towards God. What is loyalty you ask. Loyalty is standing for the Creator God’s cause despite your hatred and the world’s hatred for me. I owe Him by loyalty, not you. And you ask about human life and dignity. Well, only God can give life and dignity meaning and your sodomite behavior strips you of the dignity you could have if you would only leave your sin, and in terms of life, well, it is your life that I am pleading for in writing this.

And the Church teaching is only misguided to you because it does not support your perversion.

SS writes,

“That’s why we’re so angry. This is personal for us. There are times in your life when you have the opportunity to stand up for your friends. When you let that opportunity pass, your friends notice. It doesn’t mean we can’t be friends, but it diminishes you, and it diminishes the friendship. That’s how it is, no matter what the issue or what the venue.

So stand up. Stand up for us. Do the right thing. You don’t have to agree with us on everything, but repudiate Chick-Fil-A. Unlike them on Facebook. Withdraw your support for them. Join us in the boycott. If you can’t do that, then please ask yourself whether I’m your friend. In fact, ask yourself whether anyone is.”

Bret responds,

It is more than personal for us. It is about God’s glory, your soul, and the well being of countless others if your belief system and behavior is left unchallenged. The Love of Christ compels us to lift up God’s standard and to oppose you.

The Piper’s Generational Pietistic Advance Against The Kingdom Of Darkness

Circa 2012 — World Magazine

According to Barnabas Piper Homoxexuality is one of the most defining, contentious, and complex issues facing this generation of the church. We cannot sacrifice our biblical convictions but neither can we sacrifice the church’s ability to serve people of opposing viewpoints and lifestyles.

Circa 2030 — Universe Magazine

According to Eutychus Piper (son of Barnabas Piper and Grandson of John Piper) Necrophilia is one of the most defining, contentious, and complex issues facing this generation of the church. We cannot sacrifice our biblical convictions but neither can we sacrifice the church’s ability to serve people of opposing viewpoints and lifestyles.

Circa 2055 — Cosmos Magazine

And according to Nikolai Piper (son or Eutychus, grandson of Barnabas, and Great-Grandson of John Piper) Beastiality is one of the most defining, contentious, and complex issues facing this generation of the church. We cannot sacrifice our biblical convictions but neither can we sacrifice the church’s ability to serve people of opposing viewpoints and lifestyles.

Piper’s Chicken

http://online.worldmag.com/2012/07/31/chick-fil-a-appreciation-day-a-bold-mistake/

“I do not question the motives of Mike Huckabee (in calling to eat at Chick – Fil – A in protest over actions against Chick-Fil-A for their words opposing Sodomy) or those thousands joining him, but what about the wider effects? How is the Kingdom of God served by this? Is Jesus represented well to the gay community and the politicians pandering to them? Marching on Chick-fil-A tomorrow like an army will produce nothing more than defined battle lines, and the result will be greater contention and fewer softened hearts. On both sides.”

Barnabas Piper
World Blog Magazine

How is the Kingdom of God served by this? Uh, maybe the Kingdom of God is served by not acquiescing to being shoved into the closet when Christian truths are uttered that pagans don’t like. Please keep in mind that the reason Chick-Fil-A is being targeted as a business is because they give millions of dollars to pro-family organizations. If Chick-Fil-A is allowed a very public voice against sodomy then it might be the case that other businesses might find the courage to stand up against the plague of sodomy that covers our land. An army descending on Chick-Fil-A in order to show support for both freedom of speech as well as support for Chick-Fil-A in its opposition to sodomy serves the cause of the Kingdom of God.

And as to Piper’s concern about the wider effects. The wider effect is to make clear that Christians oppose sin and sinners and that we won’t go silently into the night despite the agenda of LGBT. Does this idiot Piper really think that people get saved because Christian’s surrender their convictions and retreat before evil?

Oh horror of horror that the consequence would be defined battle lines, or that more contention would result. Doesn’t Piper realize that the LGBT agenda is in control of our schools, our courts, our political parties, and our families? After 50 years of losing our children to the sodomite community and fighting back with the sentimental pietistic nonsense that Piper puts on display isn’t it about time that we start acting like these people are the enemies of Christ and of Christianity? I want more contention. God grant contention in root, branch, and twig with these people. Maybe if the LGBT types clearly see that our love for them is expressed best by opposing their Christ hating agenda they will see that Christ is opposed to them lest they repent. Christ is not wringing His hands in heaven hoping against hope that they will repent. Christ is in full battle garb commanding them to repent or die.

Elsewhere in the same piece Piper says,

Homosexuality is one of the most defining, contentious, and complex issues facing this generation of the church. We cannot sacrifice our biblical convictions but neither can we sacrifice the church’s ability to serve people of opposing viewpoints and lifestyles. The 452,000 people supporting Chick-fil-A are delivering more than one message, and the message the homosexual community and its supporters see is “us versus you.” The event also sends a message of separatism and territorialism in the “reclaiming” of those restaurants that are being boycotted, a collective action easily seen as a shaking of the fist or a wagging of the finger.

Do antichrists desire to be served by Christians? Oh, sure, when they are dying from the eventual flaming out of their lives because of their pursuit of sodomy, we must be there to give them the Gospel on their death beds but the best way the Church can serve the sodomite who is gnashing his teeth at God is by opposing their belief system and those zealots who embrace it from stem to stern.

Also, Piper seems to have lost the century long Reformed staple of the “antithesis.” Of course it is “us against them.” The same “us against them” you find in the blessing of Psalm 1 when we refuse to walk, stand, or sit with the wicked. What Bible is Piper reading? To be sure, we must be as charitable as we can be towards sodomites but part of charity is denouncing their belief system and lifestyle.

And Piper complains against “separatism?” Somebody better remind Piper of the necessity to not be conformed to the world per Romans 12. Was St. Paul being a separatist when he said, “Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them.” (Eph. 5:11)

Piper’s implicit course of action is a denunciation of every Christian in Church History from Charles Martel being territorial at the Battle of Tours, to John Knox calling for separatism from Queen Mary’s belief system.

And again he writes,

‎”So I stand with Dan Cathy in his biblical affirmation of family but I cannot stand with those making a movement out of his beliefs.”

Barnabas Piper
World Magazine Blog

Does that sound anything like this?

So I stand with Jesus Christ in his biblical affirmation of family but I cannot stand with those making a movement out of his beliefs.

Piper’s whole piece is stupidity standing on its head shouting “Look at me.” To follow his counsel is to embrace the self destruction of the Christian faith.

The Clergy & The Destruction Of Christianity

This from,

The Decline of Christianity: How the Clergy Brought Down the Faith

Writing in the 19th century, Henry Buckle put together a three-volume History of Civilization in England (1869).

Buckle was no friend of Christianity, and was happy to witness its demise in his time. But his observation as to the cause of the decline of the influence of Christianity is rather revealing. Speaking of the decline of ecclesiastical power and the emergence of what he called “religious liberty”, he made these comments:

“Among the innumerable symptoms of this great movement, there were two of peculiar importance. These were the separation of theology, first form morals, and second from politics. The separation from morals was effected late in the seventeenth century; the separation from politics before the the middle of the eighteenth century. And it is a striking instance of the decline of the old ecclesiastical spirit, that both of these great changes were begun by the clergy themselves. . . . Warburton, bishop of Gloucester, was the first who laid down that the state must consider religion in reference, not to revelation, but to expediency; and that it should favour any particular creed, not in proportion to its truth, but solely with a view to its general utility. . . .

Thus it was that, in England, theology was finally severed from the two great departments of ethics and of government.”

Volume 1, pp.424-427

Dr. Hodge then goes on to say,

This is the legacy of the Enlightenment that is with us today. It’s religious manifestation was in Moravian pietism the faith system that influenced Wesley and the Great Awakening. Now if you want to understand why kids are turning up at college with the ideas of Nietzsche firmly planted in their psyche and in their lifestyle and departing the Christian faith in droves, you have to look backward to the 16th and 17th centuries to find not only the root ideas, but who introduced them.

And it was the Christians who effectively laid the foundations for their own demise over the next four centuries.

And now with the advent and growing popularity of R2K we are seeing the work of Warburton, Bishop of Gloucester flower here in the States in the Reformed community of all places. R2K does not believe that Christianity can create a distinct social order. There is no such thing as a Christian social order and so there can be no such thing as “Christendom.” As such, a social order vacuum is created for other false religions to fill. As Christianity can not form a social order or culture, therefore, Christ hating Judaism, Islam, Marxism, and other variant forms of religious humanism will form the social order and culture.

The last sentence from Buckle above must be corrected. Theology was never severed from England’s ethics and government. Certainly it was the case that Christian theology was severed from England’s ethics and government but some other theology then filled the vacuum to inform England’s ethics and government. No neutrality.

Drought & God’s Providence

Many scriptures speak of God being in control of the presence and absence of rain and withholding rain as a sign of His displeasure.

Dt. 28:15 “ But it shall come about, if you do not [a]obey the Lord your God, to observe to do all His commandments and His statutes with which I charge you today, that all these curses will come upon you and overtake you:

23 [a]The heaven which is over your head shall be bronze, and the earth which is under you, iron. 24 The Lord will change the rain of your land powder and dust; from heaven it shall come down on you until you are destroyed. (cmp. Lev. 26:19).

The metaphors of heaven as bronze and earth as iron spoke of a rainless sky and a barren land. Such realities would be frightful to any people.

Zech. 14:17 And it will be that whichever of the families of the earth does not go up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, there will be no rain on them.

Acts 14:17 and yet He did not leave Himself without witness, in that He did good and gave you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, [a]satisfying your hearts with food and gladness.”

James 5:17 Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed [a]earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the earth for three years and six months.

Amos 4:7 “Furthermore, I withheld the rain from you
While there were still three months until harvest.
Then I would send rain on one city
And on another city I would not send rain;
One part would be rained on,
While the part not rained on would dry up.

Jer.5:24 Neither say they in their heart, Let us now fear the LORD our God, that giveth rain, both the former and the latter, in his season: he reserveth unto us the appointed weeks of the harvest.

When I shut up heaven and there is no rain, or command the locusts to devour the land, or send pestilence among my people, if My People who are called by my Name will humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive there sin and heal their land. (2 Chronicles 7: 13-14)

God created the world as a good environment which would normally provide ample water and food for mankind (Genesis 1:1).

0lder Calvinists saw an interruption of rain as God’s just judgment, Thomas Watson in 1670,

“It is God who brings droughts and rain, and who opens and stops the clouds, the bottles of heaven, at his pleasure:

Watson then cites Jer. 14:2-4,

“Judah mourns, her cities languish; they wail for the land, and a cry goes up from Jerusalem. The nobles send their servants for water; they go to the cisterns but find no water. They return with their jars unfilled; dismayed and despairing, they cover their heads (as a token of great grief and sorrow, as mourners do.) The ground is cracked because there is no rain in the land; the farmers are dismayed and cover their heads.”

Watson, like many of the older Calvinists saw the productiveness of the earth as related to people’s obedience to God.

They could look at the sins of Adam, Eve, and Cain as those sins resulted in unfruitfulness of the earth (Genesis 3:17-18; Genesis 4:12).

17 Then to Adam He said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat from it’;

Cursed is the ground because of you;
In [a]toil you will eat of it
All the days of your life.
18 “Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you;
And you will eat the [b]plants of the field;

As a result of Cain’s sin,

12 When you cultivate the ground, it will no longer yield its strength to you; you will be a vagrant and a wanderer on the earth.”

The Older Calvinists could look at Israel’s relationship with God and how the sins of Israel also directly affecting the fertility of the Promised Land.

When the people obeyed God, the land was productive (Deuteronomy 11:11-14). However, when they disobeyed, judgment came on the land by drought and famine (Leviticus 26:23-26; Deuteronomy 11:16-17; 1 Kings 8:35).

I Kings 8:35 “ When the heavens are shut up and there is no rain, because they have sinned against You, and they pray toward this place and confess Your name and turn from their sin when You afflict them,

At the same time the Old Testament contains promises that God will protect His faithful ones in times of famine (Job 5:20, 22; Psalms 33:18-19; Psalms 37:18-19; Proverbs 10:3)

Ps. 33:18 Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear Him,
On those who [a] hope for His lovingkindness,
19 To deliver their soul from death
And to keep them alive in famine

Ps. 18 The Lord knows the days of the [a]blameless,
And their inheritance will be forever.
19 They will not be ashamed in the time of evil,
And in the days of famine they will have abundance.

While the Bible states that some famines and droughts are the judgment of God (2 Samuel 21:1; 1 Kings 17:1; 2 Kings 8:1; Jeremiah 14:12; Ezekiel 5:12; Amos 4:6), not all such disasters are explicitly connected to divine punishment (Genesis 12:10; Genesis 26:1; Ruth 1:1; Acts 11:28). However, when God did send drought and famine on His people, it was for the purpose of bringing them to repentance (1 Kings 8:35-36; Hosea 2:8-23; Amos 4:6-8).

So older Calvinists used to read visitations upon the land as God communicating to His people by Divine providence. Those negative visitations could be lack of rain, they could be fire that raged through a city, or they could be capture by one’s enemies. The point is that older Calvinists, in difficulties or in blessings and abundance saw the hand of God.

For example,

Thomas Watson on the great fire that decimated London in 1670,

“That the burning of London is a national judgment, is evident enough to every man who has but half an eye.”

“O sirs, you are to see and observe and acknowledge the hand of the Lord in every personal judgment, and in every domestic judgment. Oh how much more then in every national judgment that is inflicted upon us! And thus I have done with those ten considerations, that should not only provoke us—but also prevail with us, to see and acknowledge the hand of the Lord in that recent dreadful fire, which has laid our city desolate!”

When other Puritans in the New World experienced starvation and Indian attacks, they reasoned it was God’s will and possibly also His punishment for their materialism and other sins. When they were victorious in battle with the Indians or reaped a bountiful harvest, they gave thanks to God.

Mary Rowlandinson, a Calvinist preacher’s wife in the New World was captured by Indians in a raid on their town.

Rowlandson believed that God was punishing his people for breaking their special covenant as his chosen people. She described the relationship between the Indians and the colonists as one orchestrated by God. As she surveyed her home after the attack bv the Indians, she credited the destruction not to the Indians, but to God, when she quoted “Come, behold the works of the Lord, what desolations He has made in the earth-“[10] When pondering the escape of the Indians, weighed down with the burden of their wounded captives, from the English army, Rowlandson concluded that “God strengthened [the Indians] to be a scourge to His people.” Rowlandson believed that “our perverse and evil carriages in the sight of the Lord have so offended Him that, instead of turning his hand against [the Indians], the Lord feeds and nourishes them.” She reinforced her conviction that God punished her people through the Indians by quoting the scriptural voice of God saying “Oh, that my people had harkened to me, and Israel had walked in my ways; I should soon have subdued their enemies and turned my hand against their adversaries.”[11] The Indians’ success over the Puritans was a result of the failure of the Puritans to uphold their covenant with God. The warning that John Cotton preached over forty years earlier, that if the colonist, “degenerate, to take loose courses, God will surely plucke you up,” had become prophetic to Mary Rowlandson

Remember, the point that I’m trying to make here, is that whether it was drought, or some other hardship, Older Calvinists believed that God’s sovereign providential hand was in the matter. Whatever they were dealing with it did not come to them by chance or happenstance. And generally they believed if what came to them was hardship, then they had need to repent.

Maybe they drew too tight a connection between the hardship and the specific sin in their lives they were being chastened for, but at least they understood that the world was Governed directly by God whatever concrete event may come into their lives.

I think there is danger in drawing to tight a connection between hardship that comes into our lives and some specific exact sin, though Scripture clearly teaches God chastens those He loves. If we draw to tight a connection between hardship and some exact sin we could fall prey to the thinking that success always equal righteousness while hardship always equals some wickedness. Scripture gives us plenty of examples that counter that so that we will not fall into that thinking.

Having said that, I also think that we have fallen into the greater danger of not seeing the world alive with God’s providential superintendence like the older Calvinists. We too often fail to see God’s providence in all the affairs around us. We too typically forget that all that happens, happens by divine ordination and with the concurrence of Divine providence.

For the older Calvinists God’s hand was seen in everything. To often for us, God is a spectator, along with us, in the
vicissitudes of life. And because we don’t seen God’s providence in all that comes our way we are slow to turn to Him in every situation, casting our all upon Him.

Now we ask why did the older Calvinists view life with this high sense of God intimate providence?

Because they saw it taught everywhere in Scripture,

Amos 3:6, “When disaster comes to a city, has not the Lord caused it?”

Whatever the judgment is which falls upon a city—God is the author of it; he acts in it and orders it according to his own good pleasure. There is no judgment that accidentally falls upon any person, city, or country. Every judgment is inflicted by a divine power and providence… including drought.

“The Lord said to him—Who gave man his mouth? Who makes him deaf or mute? Who gives him sight or makes him blind? Is it not I, the Lord?” Exodus 4:11.

“See now that I myself am He! There is no god besides me. I put to death and I bring to life, I have wounded and I will heal, and no one can deliver out of my hand!” Deuteronomy 32:39.

“The Lord brings death and makes alive; he brings down to the grave and raises up. The Lord sends poverty and wealth; he humbles and he exalts. 1 Samuel 2:6-7.

“When times are good, be happy; but when times are bad, consider: God has made the one as well as the other.” Ecclesiastes 7:14.

“This is what the Lord says: As I have brought all this great calamity on this people, so I will give them all the prosperity I have promised them.” Jeremiah 32:42.

“Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that both calamities and good things come?” Lamentations 3:38.

“When disaster comes to a city, has not the Lord caused it?” Amos 3:6.

“For he wounds, but he also binds up; he injures, but his hands also heal.” Job 5:18.

“I know that you can do all things; no plan of yours can be thwarted.” Job 42:2.

“Our God is in heaven; he does whatever pleases him.” Psalm 115:3.

“I know that the Lord is great, that our Lord is greater than all gods. The Lord does whatever pleases him, in the heavens and on the earth, in the seas and all their depths.” Psalm 135:5-6.

“I form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity and create disaster; I, the Lord, do all these things.” Isaiah 45:7.

“The Lord has afflicted me; the Almighty has brought misfortune upon me!” Ruth 1:21.

“I was silent; I would not open my mouth, for you are the one who has done this.” Psalm 39:9. “He is the Lord; let him do what is good in his eyes.” 1 Samuel 3:18.

“The Lord brought all this disaster on them.” 1 Kings 9:9.

“‘I am going to bring disaster on you.” 1 Kings 21:21.

“The Lord has decreed disaster for you.” 1 Kings 22:23.

“Therefore this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: I am going to bring such disaster on Jerusalem and Judah that the ears of everyone who hears of it will tingle!” 2 Kings 21:12.

“The Lord works out everything for his own ends– even the wicked for a day of disaster!” Proverbs 16:4.

“Therefore this is what the Lord says: I will bring on them a disaster they cannot escape. Although they cry out to me, I will not listen to them!” Jeremiah 11:11.

We see, by the witness of Scripture, that the older Calvinists had good reason to have a strong belief in God’s providence. It was part and parcel of that which makes Calvinism, Calvinism, and that is the belief in the Sovereignty of God.

So what is our attitude to be in the face of natural disasters?

1.) We would do well, in every natural occurrence, to see the hand of the Lord, and to look through the instrument that God uses to effect His end to the invisible God who wielded that instrument. Winds do not blow, floods do not come, rain is not with-held, unless God be in it. (“Shall the axe boast over him who hews with it, or the saw magnify itself against him who wields it?” Is. 10:15).

2.) We don’t blame God as if He is guilty of our demands. Could any of us say that we are as Holy in our walk as our righteous Father Job was, and yet, God in His providence laid Job low and Job learned not to put God in the dock. When hardship comes our way we must remember that God’s dealings with us are altogether just, and that none of us, if honest with ourselves, can indict God for His dealings with us, as if we deserve better than whatever God brings.

3.) Repent. Repentance means a change in our thinking and then our lifestyle. We have to abandon our humanistic fantasies and return to taking the entire Word of God seriously. Why should we find it so difficult to call for repentance in the time of drought? Our whole life should be characterized as a life style of repentance and if that is so hardship should doubly call us to examine ourselves unto repentance, amending of thinking and acting where needs be and trust in Christ alone.

4.) Understand the truth of God’s “Severe Mercy.” Providentially, God sends hardship into our lives, often to put us into the refiners fire of sanctification. God’s severe mercy, often painfully, yet exactingly conforms us to Christ. We should pray that we might be able to say,

“I thank thee Lord for the Rod, the file, and the refiners fire, for grace tried and proven is better than grace left untried.”

(Paul’s thorn in the Flesh — God’s grace is sufficient.)

5.) We reach out with compassion to those who are suffering from natural disasters. We demonstrate the Love of God. We show the love of God in ministering to the needs and hurts of those immediately affected. It is an opportunity to show the love of Christ. It is an opportunity to relieve physical suffering [as Jesus did when He walked the earth], and point people to the only way to relieve spiritual suffering and know Peace w/ God.