Continuing to examine
“RealLive,LegitPh.DReverendDoctorwhohasreadbooksandallthat(mostoftheminLatin)andwhohashadhisDissertationpublishedwithVandenhoek&Ruprecht,(alegitGermanacademichouse)” BrianLee. (And who doesn’t give a hill of beans for titles.) mid-term Election piece located here,
http://www.patheos.com/Topics/Politics-in-the-Pulpit/The-Church-Should-Not-Weigh-In-On-Ballot-Issues-Brian-Lee-110314.html
“RealLive,LegitPh.DReverend Doctorwhohasreadbooksandall that(mostoftheminLatin)andwhohashadhisDissertationpublishedwithVandenhoek&Ruprecht,(alegitGermanacademichouse)” BrianLee. (And who doesn’t give a hill of beans for titles.) wrote,
“Let me be perfectly clear. I am not advocating an utterly private spirituality, such that our faith has no impact on our public behavior and speech. There is a key distinction to be made between the duties of the church in its official capacity—i.e., the provisional governing authority of the heavenly kingdom—and the duties of individual dual-citizen Christians.
Churches absolutely have the obligation to mandate adherence to God’s law. Christ commanded the church to “make disciples… teaching them to observe all that I commanded you” (Matthew 28:19). This is why “discipline”—teaching and enforcing God’s moral law—is a distinguishing mark of Reformed churches. How then can religious congregations guide their members in moral and social issues, especially in this politicized age where every such decision seems to have political and economic ramifications?
Here the Christian tradition must acknowledge that the New Testament is virtually silent about how the world should be governed by the civil authorities. (Note: while Old Testament Israel’s theocracy is relevant, the New Testament does not teach that it is a model for the church.)
For obvious reasons, because New Testament believers lived under Roman rule they were not commanded to engage in political activity. Nowhere in the New Testament are individual believers commanded to tell people outside the church how to behave. In contrast, we are told to lead quiet lives, and not disturb the extant order. Paul commands the church to “submit” (Romans 13.1).
1.)
RealLive,LegitPh.DReverendDoctorwhohasreadbooksandallthat(mostoftheminLatin)andwhohashadhisDissertationpublishedwithVandenhoek&Ruprecht,(alegitGermanacademichouse)” BrianLee insist that he is not advocating an utter private spirituality and yet later in his article he insists that “neither the Church nor her preachers can say unambiguously that such laws (against abortion) must be enacted.
One wonder if
RealLive,LegitPh.DReverendDoctorwhohasreadbooksandallthat(mostoftheminLatin)andwhohashadhisDissertationpublishedwithVandenhoek&Ruprecht,(alegitGermanacademichouse)” BrianLee see the contradiction he is involved in? On one hand we are told that as Ministers we can privately be against abortion but we must not publicly say in a pulpit that “since God’s law prohibits abortion we should prohibit abortion in our laws.” Privately we can be opposed to abortion. Publicly in the pulpit we must not say that abortion should be prohibited.
And yet Dr. Rev. Pastor Lee who reads Latin and has been published wants us to believe that he is not advocating utterly private spirituality? Ok … maybe the trick there is the word “utterly?”
2.) Dr. Rev. Pastor Lee who reads Latin and has been published but doesn’t give a hill of beans about titles, makes a big deal about how the New Testament is virtually silent. Once again, this demonstrates that Dr. Rev. Pastor Lee who reads Latin and has been published is operating according to a kind of Reformed Dispensationalism. His Baptist hermeneutic is telling him that unless the New Testament repeats a truth from the Old Testament we must assume that God’s word is silent about a matter. For Dr. Rev. Pastor Lee who reads Latin and has been published the Old Testament is not authoritative. That this is true for Dr. Rev. Pastor Lee who reads Latin and has been published can be seen in the fact that he baldly says that since the New Testament doesn’t repeat the Old Testament when it comes to theocracy therefore we must believe that the Old Testament is not authoritative.
3.) The New Testament though is not virtually silent on how the world should be governed by civil authorities. Romans 13 says volumes. Here we turn to Christopher Goodman’s sermon on this text and subject.
http://www.constitution.org/cmt/goodman/obeyed.htm
Read Christopher Goodman’s short book and watch him draw out from Romans 13 principles for how the world should be governed contra Dr. Rev. Pastor Lee who reads Latin and has been published but doesn’t give a hill of beans about titles.
As one example we see that Goodman overturns Dr. Rev. Pastor Lee who reads Latin and has been published but doesn’t give a hill of beans about titles thesis that Christians must be silent before all ordained leaders thus revealing how Dr. Rev. Pastor Lee who reads Latin and has been published but doesn’t give a hill of beans about titles is mishandling the text. Goodman (who also read Latin) writes on Romans 13:1,
Then as the Apostle writes, we confess, and so much as he speaks we grant, that is, that all men are bound to obey such Magistrates, whom God has ordained over us lawfully according to His word, which rule in His fear according to their office, as God has appointed. For though the Apostle says: There is no power but of God: yet does he here mean any other powers, but such as are orderly and lawfully instituted by God. Either else should He approve all tyranny and oppression, which comes to any commonwealth by means of wicked and ungodly rulers, which are to be called rightly disorders, and subversions in commonwealths, and not God’s ordinance. For He never ordained any laws to approve, but to reprove and punish tyrants, idolaters, papists, and oppressors. Then when they are such, they are not God’s ordinance. And in disobeying and resisting such, we do not resist God’s ordinance, but Satan’s …
So, one principle that Goodman finds here from the New Testament, for how the world should be governed is that it should not be governed by Christ Haters. I for one am shocked that Goodman would disagree on the interpretation of Romans 13:1 with Dr. Rev. Pastor Lee who reads Latin and has been published but doesn’t give a hill of beans about titles.
4.) We are told that “Churches absolutely have the obligation to mandate adherence to God’s law” but we are also told, in so many words, that Churches absolutely have the obligation to mandate adherence to God’s law until one is in the voting booth where the mandate is lifted. The Church must mandate that members not steal but the Church must not mandate regarding the legality of them if the membership are stealing via the agency of the third party Senator or Congressman for whom they vote.
5.) What if the Extant order passes legislation that all ministers with the last name “Lee” must be executed? Is it ok to trouble the extant order then? Is it acceptable then for Ministers to say from the Pulpit that such a law must be overturned?
Pastor Bret,
I’m finding these very educational. Thank you so much for fisking this out.