Your Preacher & His Preaching Habits; McAtee contra “The Godless Coalition”

I’ve come to call them “The Godless Coalition.” I’ll not insist that every piece they publish is abhorrent or that some can’t be helpful. I will say however that just as one doubtless can find good food in the garbage dumpsters behind 5-star restaurants but still might decide better food sources are available so one may be able to occasionally find salutary articles in “The Godless Coalition’s” archives but why would one bother to search when there are so many other better sources available?

This piece was brought to my attention by an Iron Ink reader and friend.

Expect Less (and More) of Your Pastor in Addressing Current Events

And it’s just about what you’d expect from Kalergi Clergy who graduated from R2K Westminster Seminary California.

You can read it if you like. I’m just going to give a few observations on a few of the points that the article hits in order to eviscerate this anti-Christ thinking and that in order to provide some help to people who smell the foulness of this reasoning but who may have a hard time getting their arms around how to point out the source of the foul oder.

1.) The article argues that your Preacher is doing you a favor when he doesn’t preach on social issues like abortion, sodomy, trannie-ism, birth control, governmental deceptions of the highest order, the impact of a policy that will end in a disappearance of borders, or Magistrates who command wicked behavior. The reason your Preacher is doing you a favor for not preaching on those things is that he has more important things to preach on and your preacher has limited authority as to what he can speak to, besides… God really has no “thus saith the Lord” to speak on these types of issues.

The problem here is that

a.) This presupposes that Christ is not an all-consuming sovereign King.  The mind of Christ made known in Scripture from Genesis to Revelation doesn’t legislate on the kind of issues mentioned above. Per this R2K thinking Jesus came to save your soul, grant to you an individual if abstracted personal piety that has zero impact on public square issues. This is called “sanctification.” This denuded Jesus is the Jesus that your Preacher needs to be bringing to you every week.

b.) This presupposes that Preachers are not set apart to aid God’s people in taking every thought captive to make those thoughts obedient to Christ. The congregation instead, by way of silence in the pulpit, is allowed to conclude that God doesn’t have a word to speak on let’s say Marxism, Critical Race Theory, Existentialism, Romanticism, Intersectionality or that Uncle Frank is now Aunt Francis. All that is irrelevant as long as people can articulate the doctrines of Justification, Imputation, Regeneration, and give solid reasons why the third use of the law is no longer applicable.

Please understand, I am in no way saying that Justification, Imputation, Regeneration, Election, or the Ordo Salutis are unimportant doctrines or even less important than some of the other issues mentioned. What I am saying is that your Preacher needs to be speaking to both.

As an example … As a Preacher I can say; “Because we are Justified by the work of Christ so that our guilt is now taken away, we no longer should be a people who are laden by the false guilt that the race pimps seek to laden us with in order to manipulate our behavior by promising to rid us of guilt if we will only vote a certain way. Because we are Justified and have had our sin and guilt imputed to Christ we are not a people who accept notions of false guilt that are always being pushed on us as a means of our destruction.”

See… I just delivered a word on Justification with an appropriate application as it fits a contemporary issue. Other examples can be easily multiplied. If your  Preacher can’t do that then find another Preacher.

2.) Your Preacher has a limited message that must point you to Jesus.

The problem here is

a.) This presupposes that Salvation is only personal and individual and not corporate. While it is certainly true that any Preacher worth his salt will remind God’s people that Jesus is the only relief and cure for sin and sinners. People must be reminded constantly that Jesus Christ is their righteousness before the Father and that we rely solely on His mediatorial work to have Peace with God. However, all of that does not negate that pointing people to Jesus also includes helping people to answer the question, “How Now Shall We Live to Please God,” as a community. To preach the answer to that question from the pulpit is pointing people to Christ.

b.) The presupposes that theology is NOT the Queen of the Sciences. Everything we encounter in our lives comes to us informed by a theology that corresponds to the Christ or corresponds to some false Christ. When Preacher refuses to speak to the kinds of issues that the TGC eschews then the Preacher by his neglect is allowing his people to be pointed to some alien Christ who is not Christ. Every issue comes to us as an expression of some theology. If the minister is not preaching the mind of God on these issues he is a false shepherd.

3.) Your Preacher isn’t responsible to make sure his congregation has a shared world and life view because that is too much to expect. Your Pastor isn’t called to referee every dispute among Christians.

The problem here is;

a.) If you Preacher doesn’t give a “thus sayeth the Lord” on (as for example) “how feminism is an attack on Christ,” or “how cultural Marxism in the Church creates a different Jesus,” or ” the danger of the Great Reset as the next attempt at Babel,” etc. then what your Preacher is communicating is that God doesn’t have a “thus sayeth the Lord” for movements and theologies that have as their intent to cast His Messiah off His throne.

b.) It is true that your Pastor isn’t called to referee every dispute among Christians. It is also true that your Pastor is called to tell you that God, long ago, has solved disputes that Christians may be arguing about today.

I agree that the Minister should speak to local issues when warranted. I agree that a minister only has so many hours in a week but I would remind people that the Preacher’s primary work is prayer and ministry of the Word (Acts 6:4) and that others must take up other perceived clergy responsibilities so that your minister may excel in what he was set apart to do. Preachers are supposed to understand Christianity as communicated in God’s Word and then are to understand the times and know what must be done in light of that understanding and then are to Preach like their hair is on fire so that some may be saved though singed by fire.

It is my prayer that people would flee from the kind of Preachers who take seriously the counsel offered in this “Godless Coalition” piece. I’m sure the author has good intentions. I’m also sure good intentions pave the road to hell.