Boy Sodomites Of America

Boy Scout Oath

On my honor, I will do my best
To do my duty to God and my country and to obey the Scout Law;
To help other people at all times;
To keep myself physically strong, mentally awake and morally straight.

I was and remain an Eagle Scout. At 14 years of age obtaining the Eagle Scout award was a pretty big deal for me and something to this day I look back upon fondly. The Boy Scouts didn’t give those awards away and anybody who received one worked pretty hard to get it. I was in an especially good Troop. Troop 100 (later 400) of Sturgis, Michigan was led by Leland Thornton, an outdoorsy yet professorial type. Mr. Thornton had help from several of the Fathers and it was a large Troop of at least 35 boys as I recall.

We did it all in this Troop. We gazed at and learned the stars, we learned all the knots, we navigated by compass alone, we learned canoing, sailing, and fishing. We learned basic first aid. We learned how to survive in the wild on only what the wild provided. We hiked, backpacked, and biked. We camped, learn to build a fire with only a flint, and worked on erosion prevention projects. We worked with our communities, our Churches, and our families. 40 years later my chief regret is that I don’t remember more of the technical skills I learned in those early years.

Because my times with the Boy Scouts of America was so good, I am especially saddened to see that they have voted to let sodomite boys into their organization. I suppose it was inevitable given the direction that the cultural winds are blowing but I am still a bit lachrymose that an organization that was, at least in theory, supposed to build men, has now capitulated to an agenda that eviscerates the very notion of manhood.

There have been those who have reasoned that the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) should allow sodomites into their organization on the basis that such boys could learn the arts of manliness in the Scouts and so somehow be rescued from their self destructive sodomite ways. Such reasoning, though doubtless well intended, was misguided for several reasons,

First, the sodomite agenda didn’t want sodomite boys in the BSA so that the BSA could cure the sodomite boys of their sodomy. The sodomite agenda wanted sodomite boys in the BSA so has to mainstream sodomy into every nook and cranny of American life. Hence, those who argues that sodomite boys should be let into the BSA so that they might be cured of their sodomy went on a grand adventure of missing the point. That they were missing the point should have been evident when the LGBT types made it clear that they would not stop protesting the BSA until sodomite Scout Masters were finally let in as well, which, will happen soon enough.

Second, even if one is to concede the good intentions of those who argued that the BSA should allow sodomites into the BSA one can still point out that such reasoning inverted the truism that “one bad apple spoils the whole bunch,” into “a bunch of good apples makes the bad apple good.”

Third, let’s just posit, for the sake of argument, that sodomites are converted to heterosexuality upon becoming Scouts and learning what it means to be manly men. Does anyone believe for a skinny minute that the LGBT crowd wouldn’t be up in arms demanding that the BSA be closed off to sodomite boys if suddenly sodomite boys were giving up their sodomite ways because of the influence of Scouting? The push to get sodomite boys into Scouts was never about redeeming sodomites. It’s always been about enslaving the sexually normal.

Fourth, the argument to allow sodomite boys into the BSA was strange from a parental perspective. What rational parent would want their tender young sons camping over night in a pup tent with a possible sodomite who could recruit their sexually blossoming pubescent son into the sodomite agenda? I understand having compassion for wayward boys and so wanting to open the doors of scouting to them in hopes it would cure them but what about compassion for the non sexually wayward boys who will now more easily be recruited into the sodomite lifestyle now that sodomites are going to be allowed into the BSA? Sometimes it really is true that the tender mercies of the well intentioned are cruel.

Of course now with the addition of sodomite boys into the BSA the organization will have to reinterpret the whole idea of, “of doing my duty to God,” not to mention the pledge to be “morally straight,” found in the Scout oath. Likewise the BSA will have to reinterpret the meaning of several words in their Scout Law. Words like “trustworthy,” “helpful,” “courteous,” “kind,” “clean,” and “reverent,” will have to be redefined in order for a sodomite to take such a vow with any integrity.

Of course the whole purpose of this move is to reinterpret the whole BSA organization from a boy friendly organization dedicated to helping boys channel their budding masculinity into a cornucopia of mostly outdoor activities into a political organization that will help advance the LGBT agenda. This move to accept sodomites is one more brick in the wall that is being built by the revolutionary Cultural Marxist agenda in order to de-Christianize civilization. This move is one more success story of the Cultural Marxists whereby their long march through the institutions has secured yet another victory.

The defenders of this move sought to do what is typically done in order to justify wickedness and malfeasance. They played the victim card. For example, BSA board President Wayne Perry said in a webcast: “It was never our intent to prevent young people from being part of this organization.” This is a ridiculous statement that can only gain traction because the populace has been so dumbed down and is unable to think critically. Of course the BSA historically has intended to prevent certain young people from being part of the BSA organization. Would the BSA even now accept boys who are into necrophilia into their troops? Would the BSA accept boys who were having a sexual affair with their little sisters into the BSA? Would the BSA accept boys who like farm animals into their troops? Perry’s comments are jejune and serve as an fig leaf to justify his immoral decision.

As another example of the played victim card came from Zach Wahls, an Eagle Scout raised by two lesbian mothers. Wahls said the time has come for change,

“There is nothing Scout-like about exclusion of other people, and there is nothing Scout-like about putting your own religious beliefs before someone else’s.”

So, in this statement we see Wahls puts his own religious beliefs that require all people to accept sodomy in front of the religious beliefs of those who don’t accept sodomy. Apparently, Wahls has no problem in excluding people who will not join the BSA because their boys could learn the finer arts of sodomy in the BSA.

What has happened with the BSA reminds us again that all ideologies are totalistic and so are dominion minded. All ideologies because of that, by default, have a plan for total victory which is their plan for absolute dominion. What the sodomites have achieved with this victory over the BSA is to have taken one more step towards remaking the world in their image through the taking of dominion over the BSA.

The Boy Scouts of America no longer exists. It has become the Boy Sodomites of America.

The Enns Hermeneutic

For a few years now Peter Enns and his “doctrine of inspiration” has been making waves in the Reformed / Evangelical community. Of course the fact that Enns could, with this “doctrine of inspiration” spend years at Westminster East should wave red flags for Christians in terms of supporting these institutions. I wish I could say that Westminster East was some kind of exception in regards to putatively White Hat Seminaries harboring significant error.

Anyway, I thought I would dip into the controversy and read something that explained a little bit what it was all about. Imagine my surprise when I picked up G. K. Beale’s, “The Erosion of Inerrancy in Evangelicalism,” and discovered that all Enns is pushing is a variant of neo-orthodoxy with a “History of Religions” school twist. There is nothing new in what Enns is thumping. This drivel has been pushed for decades. The fact that somehow this is seen as “new,” or, “innovative,” by some people speaks more of those people’s collective historical unawareness then it does to the fact that Enns has discovered a new and innovative Hermeneutic.

Beale, at least, recognizes that Enns has hardly come up with something new under the sun. In a trenchant critique Beale has this to say about the failure of Enns “Myth Hermeneutic.”

1.) Enns affirms that some of the narratives in Genesis, e.g. of creation and flood, are shot through with myth, much of which the biblical narrator did not know lacked correspondence to actual past reality.

2.) Enns appears to assume that since biblical writers, especially, for example, the Genesis narrator, were not objective in narrating history, then their presuppositions distorted significantly the events that they reported. He too often appears to assume that the socially constructed reality of these ancient biblical writers, e.g., their purported mythical mindsets, prevented them from being able to describe past events in a way that had significant correspondence with how a person in the modern world would observe and report events.

3.) Enns never spells out the model of Jesus’ incarnation with which he is drawing analogies for his view of Scripture.

4.) Enns affirms that one cannot use modern definitions of truth and error in order to perceive whether Scripture contains truth or error. However, this is non-falsifiable, since Enns never says what would count as an error according to ancient standards. This is also reductionistic, since there were some rational and even scientific categories as the disposal of ancient people for evaluating the observable world that are in some important ways commensurable to our own.

5.) Enns does not follow at significant points his own excellent proposal of guidelines for evaluating the views of others with whom one disagrees.

6.) Enns’s book is marked by ambiguities at important junctures of his discussion.

7.) Enns does not attempt to present to and discuss for the reader significant alternative viewpoints besides his own, which is needed in a book dealing with crucial issues.

8.) Enns appears to caricature the views of past evangelical scholarship by not distinguishing the views of so called fundamentalists from that of good conservative scholarly work.

Enns’s hermeneutic is basically a hermeneutic of post-modern tolerance. When embraced the consequence is that the reader of Scripture is the one judging Scripture (what is myth and what isn’t) as opposed to being the one who is under the judgment of Scripture. Enns himself might be comparatively “conservative,” but allow his hermeneutic to be officially sanctioned in the Church (and it already is sanctioned in a defacto way in most churches … for Pete’s sake if it could live for years and years at Westminster East, clearly it is hard to see how it wouldn’t already be ensconced in the Church now) and the consequence will be all kinds of novel postmodern conclusions as putatively drawn from Scripture.

Bret Lee Contra Brian Lee

Recently a brouhaha was created when R2K advocate Brian Lee, went ahead as a Pastor in the Church realm, prayed in the common realm, opening a session of the US House of Representatives in prayer. All this despite his R2K principles that forbid from confusing the Kingdoms went ahead.

You can read Lee’s whole “apologetic” here. I’ve excised only some of the superfluous verbosity,

Should we open Congress with prayer?

Below I interact with Dr. Lee and his glaring inconsistencies as he ties himself up in knots trying to justify the contradiction involved in insisting that the two realm must not be confused all the while confusing the two realms with his prayer.

Before I get into the Lee labyrinth let me start off by quoting one of Dr. Lee’s R2K bedmates (Dr. R. Scott Clark) on this very subject. Clark said on the matter of opening common realm sessions with prayer,

“… there may be no clearer example of the confusion of the two kingdoms when Christ’s ministers do the bidding of Caesar by praying for divine blessing on behalf of the magistrate, as a civil function. Ministers and all Christians are commanded by God to pray for the magistrate. We do so during the week. We do so on the Sabbath, but do we have any business doing so to open legislative sessions? Legislators ought to pray as private persons before, during, and after their civil work but ministers are called by God as Christ’s servants in his eternal, immutable kingdom. They are not called as civil servants. If they will to be civil servants they have only to resign their ecclesiastical office. To attempt to function as an officer in both kingdoms simultaneously is a blow to the spirituality (which doesn’t mean ethereality) of Christ’s church….

For more on how to think about this see D. G. Hart, A Secular Faith. Can you imagine the Apostle Paul opening a session of the Roman senate? The real question is whether we’re going to continue to try to hang on to the last remnants of Christendom.”

And so, we see here what we’ve said all along and that is that R2K is a movement without a center. On one hand you have R2K advocates like Clark and Hart insisting that praying as Ministers in the common realm to be clear confusion of the Kingdoms while on the other hand you have Ph.D’s like Lee and wannabe Matthew Tuiniga who insists that one can be R2K and confuse the two Kingdoms.

Want to know what R2K thinks about any one issue? Flip a coin and your apt to find some R2K minister supporting the coin whether it lands heads, tails, or on its side. Shoot, you can probably find the same R2K minister supporting the same contradictory opposite positions of the coin as we find in Dr. Lee. Really, you’d be better of reading Tarot cards to find consistency in the R2K position then to read the R2K advocates themselves. It’s just that with Lee their inconsistency finds new ways to be inconsistent.

Having introduced my fisking with those comments we turn to the Honorable Dr. Lee.

Dr. Lee writes,

“I was torn, (about whether I should pray in the House of Representatives) and proceeded to have a lively debate with myself, based on the terms of my own Christian faith, on whether I ought to accept. Most arguments for and against civil religion tend to be pitched at a generic level, though the merits of generic religion are unclear to me. (I have yet to see a Judeo-Christian church — or would it be a synagogue?) However, it dawned on me that there are a number of quite good Christian arguments for and against public prayer in Congress, and that the more Christians gave serious thought to what their tradition thinks about this, the more welcome they would be when they do speak out. What follows is a brief summary of some key arguments. (Spoiler alert: I accepted and opened the pro forma session on April 30th in prayer; here is text and video, at 2:00.)…

1) What the Bible says about public prayer for civil leaders.

The Apostle Paul urges prayers and thanksgivings to be offered for all people, especially “kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a quiet and dignified life” (1 Timothy 2). Christians believe all governing authorities are established by God, and Paul even calls them “God’s servants” for our good, and for punishing evildoers (Romans 13). In the New Testament, church and state play distinct roles in God’s plan, but both are divine instruments in the world — the church for salvation, the state for preservation. So the state is a fitting subject for Christian prayer, and indeed one we pray for practically every week in our church.

Where these prayers should take place is less clear. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus warned about hypocrites, who love to pray on street corners “so they may be seen by others” (Matt 6.5). Yet for many Christians today, the whole point to praying in public is to be seen, that we may “bear witness” to the Gospel. This seems to deeply confuse the purpose of prayer with public proclamation, not to mention totally ignore Jesus’ command: “When you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret.”

Of course, as a minister I get paid to pray in public every Sunday. Which brings us to our next argument.”

Bret Lee responds,

1.) First, let me note that it is head scratchlingly amazing to me that a minister has to write a couple thousand words in order to justify praying. What next, articles from Surgeons justifying using a scalpel?

2.) Jesus instructed the disciples how to pray. In that instruction He didn’t limit His disciples as to where they could pray. That saints prayed in public can be seen everywhere in Scripture. Solomon prayed in public. Ezra prayed in public. Hannah prayed in public. Daniel prayed in public. Jesus prayed in public. To cite Matthew 6:5f so as to muddy the waters about public prayer is to completely miss the point of Jesus words in Matthew 6:5f. For a minister to misunderstand the Scripture so badly on this simple of a point should be a klaxon warning of the potential errors to come.

Dr. Lee

2) The difference between Congress and church.

Before you file this under “most obvious argument ever,” take a moment to consider exactly what the essential difference is. A church is a particular worshiping community, a creedal body, because it prays to a particular God. When I pray publicly in church, I therefore pray in the first person plural. That is, I pray in common and on behalf of every member of that community. While guests are welcome to observe and join in, there is no presumption they must do so. In doing so I presume for all to whom we are praying, and how we are praying, and why we expect our prayers to be answered.

To whatever degree “Christian” may describe America, we are quite obviously not a creedal nation. Membership in Congress is explicitly not subject to a religious test; it is in this sense an anti-creedal body. It is therefore impossible for me to pray before Congress as I pray in church, on behalf of the assembled body, for Congress does not have an agreed-upon God. However, while I may not be able to pray on behalf of people who don’t share my faith, I can certainly pray for them. In this way, I occasionally pray for sick unbelievers when I’m invited to visit them in the hospital.

Christians must not presume false unity within a pluralistic group by praying in the first person plural on their behalf. If we do pray in such settings, we must pray as individuals, to a particular God, for the group. And indeed, this seems to me most consistent with the pluralistic character of our polity, that we retain our religious distinctiveness even as we enter the public square, instead of pretending as though there is none.

Bret Lee

1.) Being a creedal nation is an inescapable category. All nations are creedal nations. Even were a nation to insist that it was not a creedal nation that disavowal would then be that nations creed. When Lee notes that the Congress is a “anti-creedal body,” he has affirmed that the creed of the Congress is that no creed except the creed of no creed will be tolerated. Non-creedalism is the established religion.

Now nations are more than creedal but they are never less than creedal. So, this nation is a creedal nation. In point of fact legion is the name of those who are insisting that this nation is only a propositional nation which is much the same as being only a creedal nation. The creed of this Nation goes something like, America is a democratic nation founded upon the notions of the right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” grounded in the principles of equality and human rights all the while affirming the creed that no creed except the creed of no creed will be tolerated. Despite Dr. Lee’s denial that is America’s creed and it is her civil religion. So, for Dr. Lee to insist that America is not a creedal nation tells us more about Dr. Lee’s analytical abilities then it tells us about America.

2.) To the contrary of Dr. Lee I would say that there is a religious test in America and religious test is the necessity for all who would serve to agree that there is no religious test in America. If any person ever ran on the idea that there should be a religious test in order to serve in Congress they would never be elected and I doubt they would be seated if they ran and won. Of course Dr. Lee agrees with our religious test that demands that we not allow religious tests and so he fits right into the current creed of this creedal nation.

3.) I do agree with Lee that as Christian ministers we must enter the public square as Christian ministers. As such were I asked to pray in that setting as a Christian minister I would pray that God would give a spirit of repentance to all men; both his servants who have a daily need to be conversant with repentance but also to those who have not had the joy of surrendering to the majesty and protection of the Lord Christ. It is true, I may not presume that all present are Christian but as a Christian minister I should pray that all might become Christian. Further I should pray that the magistrates of the nation would become God fearers and work to make existentially true what is already objectively true and that is that they might surrender the nation to the Crown Rights of the Lord Christ.

Dr. Lee writes,

3) The unknown God as the object of prayer.

It is a little odd, in my opinion, for the House of Representatives, which can’t officially believe in any particular God, to want to officially offer prayers to no God in particular. It brings to mind the Apostle Paul’s visit to Athens in Acts 17, when he notes the very religious nature of a people who raise altars dedicated “to an unknown God.” Paul grants that this unknown God was in fact the Creator God of Christianity — just as I recognize “Nature’s God” in the Declaration of Independence as the Triune God of Scripture. But then he calls the Athenians to repent of their ignorant folly in light of the resurrection of Christ.

This argument is a hard sell. Americans like their gods unknown, and their religion generic, and the more generic the better. “Hey, we’re all on a spiritual journey, no one has a corner on truth, and you can’t judge me for the object of my prayer. I’d rather members of Congress pray to someone — even just a higher power — than not pray at all.” Or, in the words of Dwight D. Eisenhower, “Our form of government has no sense unless it is founded in a deeply felt religious faith, and I don’t care what it is.” Civil religion is the enemy of the particular God; owned by every citizen, it is by definition generic.

There may be practical arguments, a la Ike, for civil religion and its generic prayer to an unknown God. It may be good public policy, and might even be good for your health. But these aren’t Christian arguments, and as a Christian minister I can’t encourage people to falsely pray to a God they don’t know and don’t believe in.

Therefore, I accepted the invitation to pray as a guest with the understanding that I could pray a Christian prayer, in and through the merits of Christ. Should the House tolerate prayers like mine, offered in the name of Christ? Only, it seems to me, if it is also willing to accept prayers written in the name of Allah, Buddha, Gaia, or Zeus. My guess is this pluralistic version of Pascal’s wager would enjoy a lot less popular support than generic prayers to a nameless God, and the practice would soon pass away entirely.

Rev. Bret Lee responds,

1.) If, as a Christian minister Brian can’t encourage people to falsely pray to a God they don’t know and don’t believe in, he can at least pray (Congress Critters) God via his prayer that those outside of Christ might come face to face with the God of the Bible that they may see their danger and so flee to Christ and he could pray that in his prayer in the well of the house. Can we not plead God for sinners to convert wherever we pray?

2.) Of course by Brian’s reasoning the House must also accept prayers written to Satan, Kali, and the Staypuff Marshmallow man. A polytheistic nation must allow all the gods in as long as the gods know to keep their place and not try to overstep the boundaries of the one true god, to wit, the Humanist God-State. Brian seems to think that one god does not predominate the the House and the Nation but in that Brian is mistaken. The one God that rules over all the gods in the public square is the God State. The God State even informs Brian what he can and can’t pray to his God as we shall see later on in this analysis.

Dr. Lee writes,

4) The nature of Christian prayer

Christian prayer is redemptive. We pray to God not as rights-bearing citizens deserving of our hearing in court, but as penniless beggars, debtors before his throne of mercy. As a Reformed Christian, I don’t hope, I know, this God will answer my prayers — not based on what I deserve, but based on what Jesus has done for me. When I pray publicly, as a Christian minister in church, I pray with this confidence on behalf of all the baptized members of that church, all who have professed faith in the work of Christ alone, and trust on him alone. I pray for their salvation, as well as for everything needful for body and soul. This is the essence of Christian prayer.

It is not only unchristian, but rude, to offer such a prayer publicly on behalf of people who don’t claim Christ. Therefore, I explicitly limited the scope of my House prayer. While I invoked the name of Christ that my prayer might be answered, my prayer was not stealthily evangelistic, or redemptive. Rather I prayed for those blessings which the Lord is pleased to give to all men in common. I prayed that the House would fulfill God’s purpose for all civil governments: “to protect the defenseless, praise those who do good, and punish those who do evil” (1 Peter 2.14, Romans 13). America may be exceptional in many ways, but not in God’s eyes, and Christians everywhere should pray these things for their government, whether they live in Syria, China, Israel, or Russia.

Rev. Bret Lee responds,

1.) Please note the two sentences I emboldened. I’m sure that there is something I am missing here because if I have not misunderstood the point here this must be the most glaring contradiction I’ve ever seen from a Reformed minister.

On one hand Dr. Lee tells us that Christian prayer is redemptive but a few sentences later Lee tells us that his prayer in Congress was not … redemptive. So, if this is really what Lee means all I can conclude is that Lee, as a Christian minister offered a non-Christian prayer in the name of Christ. What else am I to conclude?

2.) Dr. Lee also tells us that it is unchristian for a Christian Minister to offer a Christian prayer for non-Christian people.

Uhhh?

If this keeps up we are going to need a Venn diagram to keep all this straight.

3.) I also disagree with Dr. Lee about America not being exceptional. I think America is exceptional. It is exceptional in wickedness. It is also exceptional in producing profoundly confused clergy.

4.) Governments can not fulfill God’s purpose for all governments when they are not Christian because when they are not Christian they no longer have God’s standard to define either good or evil. Oh sure, non Christian governments might serve into good and evil but they will not be able to account for why they see some matters as “good” and other matters as “evil.”

Here is a copy of Dr. Lee’s prayer,

Creator God, merciful and just.

You dwell above in holiness, a father to the fatherless, protector of widows and orphans. Dear Lord, rescue the weak and needy, deliver them from the hand of the wicked.

Give wisdom to this body. You hold all things in your almighty hand, and you have established this House of Representatives — and every governing authority — as your servants, that they might protect the defenseless, praise those who do good, and punish those who do evil.

Preserve and protect our President.

Humble all these your servants with your holy law, which you shine forth in all our hearts. Help them to seek peace.

You are a God who saves. Convict us of all our sins, that we might know deliverance from these our wicked ways.

Hear this prayer, for the sake of the merits of your only Son, the crucified and risen Lord, Jesus Christ.

Amen.

1.) Lee goes out of his way to address God as “creator God.” In his mind, by doing so, Lee has avoided confusing Creation (common realm) with Redemption (grace realm). However Lee really confuses matters when Lee then refers to this Creator God as a father to the fatherless, protector of widows and orphans. However, God as Creator is only father to the fatherless and protector of widows and orphans to those fatherless and widows and orphans who are in Christ. To all those outside Christ (including the Fatherless and Widows an Orphans) the Creator God is an avenging fire.

2.) Lee suggest that God has written his law on all men’s hearts and yet Jeremiah restricts that blessing of the law written on the heart to those who are members of the new covenant (Jeremiah 31:33). In other words, Dr. Lee was mistaken on that point.

3.) I’m quite encouraged that Dr. Lee prayed for the redemption of all his listeners in this, his non redemptive prayer.

4.) It is a bit confusing that a non-redemptive prayer would be offered up for the sake of the merits of your (The Father’s) only Son. How can a non-redemptive prayer be offered up upon the merits of the Redeemer Christ?

______________________

And finally, here are the restrictions that the God State put upon Dr. Lee and his God. After all, the God state is obliged to let all the gods know how far they can go in the god states public square.

“The guest chaplain should keep in mind that the House of Representatives is comprised of Members of many different faith traditions.

The length of the prayer should not exceed 150 words.

The prayer must be free from personal political views or partisan politics, from sectarian controversies, and from any intimations pertaining to foreign or domestic policy.

It must be given exclusively and in its entirety in the English language.

It must be free from references to the national day observances of any other nation.

The prayer must be submitted at least one week ahead of time for incorporation in the Congressional Record.

When introduced by the Speaker for the prayer, the guest chaplain should not make any introductory remarks, but rather just begin the prayer.”

McAtee Contra Piper On The Church’s Role In Speaking To Political Power

Just about 11 months ago John Piper’s lack of support for anti-sodomite legislation was reported here,

www.startribune.com/local/159819565.html?refer=y

However the Piper ministry was convinced that the Newspaper got it wrong. So, instead of trusting the Newspaper’s reporting and just going with that I am going to fisk Piper to show how the Newspaper got the essence of the story correct.

Piper said in his sermon,

Don’t press the organization of the church or her pastors into political activism. Pray that the church and her ministers would feed the flock of God with the word of God centered on the gospel of Christ crucified and risen. Expect from your shepherds not that they would rally you behind political candidates or legislative initiatives, but they would point you over and over again to God and to his word, and to the cross.

First, Piper reveals that he has compartmentalized his thinking. Somehow for Piper the Christian faith has nothing to say to Politics when Political agendas are impinging on the clear revelation of Scripture. Scripture forbids sodomy but Piper refuses to concretely support legislation that would forbid sodomite marriage. One of the uses of the law (usus politicus) reminds us that one of the purposes of the law is to be used by our magistrates in order to govern society. That is, the law serves the commonwealth or body politic as a force to restrain sin. And yet Piper would have ministers seemingly ignore this use of God’s law.

Second, Piper fails to realize that Politics is just theology by another means. Politics is not a free floating category unrelated to theology. Politics is instead the outward manifestation of a people’s inward beliefs. So, when Piper refuses to tell his people that they should support what God’s law proscribes and prohibits in their social order he is suggesting that the Church can not speak God’s voice on these matters.

Now some may offer up, as Piper does, that the Church cannot speak on these issues while individual Christians should. That sounds nice and tidy but it is really just a guarantee of the Church’s effeminacy. Consider, that if the Church refuses to speak God’s voice on these matters and its membership forms Christian associations on these matters the consequence is that you could get all kinds of advocacy groups all going under the banner of “Christian.” You could have a Christian group for man boy love. You could have a Christian Sodomy group. You could have a Christian pro-Sodomite marriage group as well as Christian groups supporting Christian morality. But in Piper’s anti-politics theology what voice will speak a “thus saith the Lord” to the advocacy groups that are potentially coming out of Piper’s church that support anti-Christ behavior? Not Piper … for he has said that isn’t his business.

Others can say what they want, but I still contend that this smells of cowardice to me on Piper’s part and on all the part of those who advocate this retreat-ism.

It should be the expectation of every Christian that their laws should be informed by Biblical categories. St. Paul reminds us,

9Knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for murderers, 10For fornicators, for them that defile themselves with mankind, for enslavers, for liars, for perjured persons, and if there be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine;

Here Paul insists that the law is for the lawless. This is clearly support the usus politicus and ministers should, when necessary, be able to point to legislation and candidates and say, “based on the fact that this legislation or this candidate supports God’s usus politicus we need to get behind them.

Third, Piper introduces a false dichotomy in order to justify his cowardice. The Shepherds can, at the same time, point you over and over again to God and to His word while saying, “We need to support this candidate or legislative mandate, because he is and the legislation is also supporting God and His Word.”

What if the pending legislation was proposing forcing Jews to wear yellows stars of David in order to be identified as Jews? Would Piper sill counsel that pulpits be quiet about political activism? I think not. I think Piper’s reluctance to be politically active is one where he picks and chooses what to be active on and what not to be active on.

Piper preaches,

“Please try to understand this concluding point. When I warn you against politicizing me, or politicizing the institution called Bethlehem, or the church in general, I do so not to diminish her power but to increase it. The impact of the church for the glory of Christ and the good of the world does not increase when she shifts her priorities from the worship of God and the winning of souls and the nurturing of faith and raising up of new generations of disciples. It doesn’t. It feels in the moment that it does. “Look at how many people showed up for the rally!” Or “Look how many signatures in that church they got!” Or “Look how that committee is functioning!” It feels powerful, but give it a generation. And little by little, that vaunted power bleeds away the very nature of the church and its power.”

1.) Raising up new generations of disciples? Piper is raising up new generations of disciples by refusing to give them God’s counsel on concrete actions they can take to support God’s legislating word? Piper is going to make disciples by modeling before them the necessity to hold truth in the abstract while evading truth in the concrete. Piper is going to make disciple by going all Platonic and Pietistic from the pulpit?

Allow me to suggest that the Church has too many of those disciples (and Pastors) already.

2.) Again, note how Piper is compartmentalizing his thinking. Discipleship happens in the Church. Instructing disciples on what discipleship looks like outside the Church is a no no. This is ecclesiastical schizophrenia.

3.) Certainly we can agree that it is possible for the Church to make the good the enemy of the best but to suggest that the Best (Preaching Christ and Him Crucified) necessitates that we give up the good (speaking clearly God’s voice on social issues where God has clearly spoken) is utter nonsense. It is like saying that since feeding my children was so important and such a priority while they were in my home that I could not also instruct them. Such thinking is utter idiocy. So, let us avoid hobby horses to the neglect of preaching up Christ but lets us also avoid the hobby horse that says that we can’t give concrete instructions to God’s people from God’s Word when the State intrudes itself upon God’s authority.

4.) Of course it is my position that it is Piper who is seeking, in all this, a theology of glory, despite his implicit accusation that that is what the putative “political activist” preachers do. When Piper avoids this kind of concrete instruction he can be sure he will offend no one. In offending no one he can build his big cash filled church because no one is offended by his supporting people and legislation who align with God’s authoritative Word that certain people may not approve of. People can sit in a church where they are offended in the abstract and blow it off but when they are offended in the concrete by knowing the Pastor is going to advocate defeating concrete positions by supporting concrete legislation or candidates then they are prone to leave.

Piper preaches,

If the whole counsel of God is preached with power week in and week out, Christians who are citizens of heaven and citizens of this democratic order will be energized as they ought to speak and act for the common good. It’s your job, not mine. Don’t look to me to wave the flag for your vote. Or wave the flag for your candidate.

Why is it their job and not Pipers? Why is it the flock must act without the Shepherd? This is Pietism once again. The minister dare not get his hands dirty in concrete affairs. The minister must remain dealing with all these things in the abstract.

And if a candidate is advocating a position that is consistent with God’s Law how is it that the Minister is waving the flag for his parishioner’s candidate? What makes that candidate uniquely the parishioner’s candidate? Why is it wrong for the Minister to “wave the flag” against candidates that are advocating sodomy or tagging Jews with yellow Stars of David?

Second, America is not, nor has ever been, a Democratic order. We are founded as a Constitutional Republic. Piper might want to investigate the difference.

Piper preaches,

Let me read you from this week’s WORLD magazine the editorial by Marvin Olasky. Many of you are familiar with WORLD. WORLD is a very political magazine, and it ought to be. I just love the Marvin Olasky and the team at WORLD. I’m glad they’re doing what they’re doing. This is what he said in the article, pleading with churches not to be politicized:

Wise pastors prompt [Christians] to form associations outside the church, and leave the church to its central task from which so many blessings flow. That pattern in the 18th and 19th centuries worked exceptionally well. New England pastors in colonial times preached and taught what the Bible said about liberty, and the Sons of Liberty — not a subset of any particular church — eventually sponsored a tea party in Boston harbor. Pastors through America during those centuries preached about biblical poverty-fighting, and in city after city Christians formed organizations such as (in New York) the Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor. (WORLD, June 16, 2012, 108)

My job is to feed the saints with such meals that they go out strengthened and robust and able to do the study and do the courage and do the action needed as salt and light in this world. And that will go away if you insist on the church and the ministry being the political leaders. It will and we can point to many where it has.

1.) WORLD has long been recognized as a neon-conservative magazine. It seldom represents political or theological orthodoxy.

2.) Piper goes on earlier about how he can’t wave the flag for certain causes and yet by supporting Olasky and WORLD magazine he waves the flag for Neo-conservative pagan politics.

3.) We no longer live in the 18th and 19th centuries. The leaven of humanism has worked its leaven far more through the institutional structures of our culture. What might have worked during a time that remained much more Christian will not apply during a time that is doing all it can to tear Christianity up, root, branch and twig.

John Calvin on Edwin Walhout

John Calvin.

“Those who, rejecting Scripture, imagine that they have some peculiar way of penetrating to God, are to be deemed not so much under the influence of error as madness. For certain giddy men have lately appeared, who, while they make a great display of the superiority of the Spirit, reject all reading of the Scriptures themselves, and deride the simplicity of those who only delight in what they call the dead and deadly letter. But I wish they would tell me what spirit it is whose inspiration raises them to such a sublime height that they dare despise the doctrine of Scripture as mean and childish. If they answer that it is the Spirit of Christ, their confidence is exceedingly ridiculous; since they will, I presume, admit that the apostles and other believers in the primitive Church were not illuminated by any other Spirit. None of these thereby learned to despise the word of God, but every one was imbued with greater reverence for it, as their writings most clearly testify. . . Again, I should like those people to tell me whether they have imbibed any other Spirit than that which Christ promised to his disciples. Though their madness is extreme, it will scarcely carry them the length of making this their boast. But what kind of Spirit did our Saviour promise to send? One who should not speak of himself, (John 16: 13) but suggest and instill the truths which he himself had delivered through the word. Hence the office of the Spirit promised to us, is not to form new and unheard-of revelations, or to coin a new form of doctrine, by which we may be led away from the received doctrine of the gospel, but to seal on our minds the very doctrine which the gospel recommends.”