“For a Christian to discriminate against non-Christians (in being hired for a job) — for any reason — apart from their ability to do that job would be a blight on the Gospel because what you are basically telling people is that Christianity is not really about the person and work of Christ but its really about whether or not you are a member of my tribe. (1) If we all behaved that way of course in a Muslim majority country like Indonesia Christians would have difficulty finding jobs and then in a Christian majority country non-Christians would be left out in the cold. (2) What we are telling non-Christians in that instance — far more important whether non-Christians can get a job — is that unless you join us you’re not privileged in this society and that is grossly, I think, to confuse the Gospel with a particular culture. (3) That will set the evangelistic enterprise back who knows how far. (4) This is always the problem.(5) When Christians are persecuted they are at their best and then Christians; the success of the Gospel is so great the salt and light is kind of scattered so widely that you begin to have Christian influence and then people start wanting Christianity to be privileged. And that is always — I believe we can justify this historically — is when Christianity itself gets into trouble and the salt begins to lose its savor.”(6)
Dr. M. Scott Horton
Online Roundtable Discussion
ZCRC(IMUS) Reformed Conference 2020
1a.) This is a non-sequitur. If I have two people applying for a job and they are both ably gifted to handle the job then why wouldn’t I discriminate in favor of the Christian? I know what ethics he will be bringing to the job which means as an employer I know he won’t steal from me. I know that the non-Christian if he is consistent with his worldview will do everything he can to take advantage of me as his employer. So, if I choose to discriminate in favor of the Christian in my hiring practices I am not communicating that Christianity is about anything besides the person and work of Jesus Christ. I am communicating that when it comes to employees, I prefer the ethos of the consistent Christian to the consistent non-Christian.
1b.) What is so bad about preferring one’s own tribe? There is, in R2K, this baked-in Alienism that seems to insist that we must discriminate in favor of the stranger and the alien. There is nothing evil about preferring someone who is from your own Christian tribe over and against someone who is a member of a religious tribe who is at war with the God of the Bible.
2a.) Let Horton go over to Riyadh University in Saudi Arabia and tell them he is a Christian who wants to teach comparative religions and just see how quickly the man is hired. He is certainly qualified to teach such a course. Why wouldn’t the Sauds hire him? Could it be because he says he is a Christian? (Whether he really is or not is not for me to say.)
2b.) Non-Christians seeking employment in a genuinely Christian country if there are Christians who are qualified to do the work should be left out in the cold. In point of fact, non-Christians should be employed only until the non-Christian can train a Christian to do his job and once the Christian was trained to do the job the non-Christian should be released from that employment and so once again be left out in the cold. One wonders why Christian employers should profit non-Christians at the expense of their brothers in Christ who may well need employment? If I am to do good to all men but especially to those of the household of faith it would seem that the preferring of the Christian over the non-Christian is required by God’s Word.
3a.) It is not possible to not have Christianity identified with a particular culture or cultures. Horton and his R2K ilk keep wanting to have their Christianity culturally unembodied as if Christianity is this ethereal like substance that just kind of wafts around culture without influencing culture. Of course, this mindset is driven by their R2K presuppositions that demand that it is not possible for a culture to be Christian since that would be a confusion of categories. So, if it is not possible for a culture to be Christian then per Horton’s theology (we are being respectful) it is terrible for any particular culture to be identified with Christianity. In point of fact, it would be un-Christian for any particular culture to be identified as Christian and twice so for a Christianity to be identified with a culture.
3b.) Just for the record, it is my conviction that R2K is that which is grossly confused on Christianity.
5a) If Dr. Horton genuinely believed that Christians are at their best when persecuted then he would go to Yemen or Saudi Arabia and preach Christ. Dr. Horton doesn’t do that and so I can only conclude that Dr. Horton doesn’t really believe the nonsense statement that Christians are at their best when persecuted.
5b.) People wanting Christianity to be privileged? You mean like privileging Christian families, Christian patriarchy, Christian ethics, Christian understandings of law and justice, or Christian education over “It takes a village to raise a child” families, pagan matriarchy, pagan ethics which allow for baby murder, or pagan understandings of law and justice which allow men to use women restrooms or Muslim education? Yeah… Christianity wanting to be privileged in a social order is a terrible thing, Mike.
6.) I’m just as confident that I can demonstrate historically that when Christianity is not privileged paganism is privileged and then social order really deteriorates.
Dr. Michael Horton is not a wise man. Not in the least.
And yet he is teaching a whole generation of ministers to be as unwise as he is.
God save us.
