From The Mailbag — Will We See Things Turned Around?

Dear Pastor,

Can Obama-care and the other grave social ills of this country be turned around?

Miesha

Dear Miesha,

I’d love to say “yes” all this can be turned around. But I honestly don’t believe that it will be in our lifetimes BECAUSE the problem isn’t socialized medicine or other social ills. Those are only symptoms of a far greater problem. The problem is that man and women have turned away from Christ and are raising their middle finger to the God over all.

You see, men and women who will not own their sin and turn to the Lord Christ, and so submit to Biblical thinking are men and women who will create new gods in order to replace the God of the bible and His Christ. Historically speaking, the new god ends up being the State. Men begin to think that “in the State, we live, and move, and have our being,” and so contrive womb to the tomb Marxist States. In doing so they believe that they can lock the God of the Bible out of His creation. However, paraphrasing Kipling here, when men seek to lock God out, “the God of the copybook Headings with Terror and Slaughter returns,” or as the Bible puts it, God is not mocked. Whatsoever a man sows that shall he also reap.”

No Christian looks to the State as God and further, Christians, find such Statist thinking to be blasphemous.

So … Obama-care and other social ills are horrid beyond naming but the removal of our social ills, at this point, will only happen as the men of the West quit with their Treason against the God of the Bible and His Lord Christ.

And as burdened as I am about it, I don’t see Reformation and Revival anytime in the near future in the West, though I remain imbued with great hope that all of this is serving the one day arrival of Reformation somewhere in the World.

And so we must live with Obama-care and the other current social ills as God’s just judgment against our sin against Him.

And yet as Christians we can never bow to the State gods of this age. To do so would be a violation of the #1 commandment.

If men will not bow to Christ and repent of their sins then men will build Marxist God States whereby the State becomes God. The cure for socialized Obama-care and all other social ills is ultimately only found in people looking for the forgiveness of their sin of attempted Deicide that can only come from Christ and then having been regenerated submit to the Lordship of Jesus Christ over every area of life.

The Cross would solve it all Miesha. Without the Cross nothing is solved.

With Obama-Care The State Is Making A Claim Of Ownership Over The Citizenry

There is a State
It is alive
In it we live
And we survive

The fiat State
Determines Man
It is our God
The great I AM
(The great I AM)

The New Version of the Old Hymn
Our God, He Is Alive

All insurance is a claim of ownership. People who own goods insure those owned goods to protect their investment.

For example, minimum car coverage is required to insure OTHERS against your negligence. But minimum insurance does not require you to cover the cost of fixing your own car in case of an accident. As the owner you can determine that yourself. This requirement of minimum car coverage is within the Constitutional bounds of government since it requires us to protect others from our own dangerous (read driving) actions. In the same way a person is responsible for visitors hurt on their property by negligence to safety. (Research Biblical law of building a parapet on your roof).

If you buy a car on a loan and so have to make payments, the true owner (the company you make payments to) requires you to have full coverage because they own the car, not you. They have a right to insure their investment and so in owning the car they have the right to force you to pay for Insurance. Their requiring you to have insurance is a proclamation that they own the vehicle.

Home owners insurance protects a persons investment in their home, property or personal belongings. Insurance on the home is a claim of ownership on the home by you as the individual who owns the home.

Similarly, Life insurance protects a person (specifically their posterity) from the loss of life. So when I have life insurance it is to protect my family or my business or my children’s future, etc.. Taking out a life insurance policy on myself reflects that I own my life.

Similarly, Mortgage insurance protects the mortgage company’s investment in case of your failure to pay a mortgage. The Mortgage company owns the house and their requirement that the loan-ee purchase mortgage insurance is a claim of ownership by the Mortgage company.

Health insurance protects you, your future health, and your future earnings potential. If you owned your own health you could determine yourself whether or not to purchase health insurance and the unforced private purchasing of health insurance would indicate that you do own yourself.

All these insurances protect the owner of the investment. The owner decides whether or not to have insurance. The cost of insurance is paid by the owner. And the owner is the one guaranteed payment in case of loss.

When anyone demands for us, upon pain of penalty, to have health insurance they are claiming a right of ownership over us and over our income. I am not opting to pay insurance – I am being forced to purchase insurance by the entity (The FEDS) who considers itself my owner or I pay a penalty. If I buy a vehicle with a loan and don’t purchase full coverage auto insurance I will be penalized by the owner of the vehicle by the vehicle being reclaimed. If I buy a house with a loan and don’t purchase mortgage insurance I will be penalized by the owner of the house, by the house being foreclosed on. And now, if I don’t purchase health insurance I am, in the same way, being penalized by having to pay a tax for not purchasing health insurance, by the entity who insists it is my owner, and this demand is being made by the entity (the State) who has made a claim to owning my health (and by extension myself) by demanding that I have health insurance to begin with.

Now this claim of ownership by the State over the citizenry, via the requirement of health insurance, is made doubly clear when we realize the State will be the one who determines who will and will not be allowed to have certain medical procedures. This is especially so when we consider the death panels that are written into the Obama-care legislation. The State, being the owner of the citizenry, will determine who live and who dies by means of determine who receives certain medical care and who does not.

The government is essentially playing the mobster enforcer who makes us pay to guarantee our safety. The State, by requiring health insurance, is communicating that they are the ones who own us.

In all this the State is claiming to be that entity in which we live, and move and have our being. In all this the State is taking up the prerogative of God and claiming to be God walking on the Earth. In all this we are being required to find our identity in the State.

Hat Tip — Jeramiah Townsend, Ed Waverly

Random Thoughts Connecting Pelagianism to Modernity and Theistic Evolution

1. Pelagians “deny original sin”.

Sin is not transmitted to the whole human race by Adam’s fall. Sin grew by imitation. Thus, infants are free from original sin.

Pelagius insisted that God would not command something of man that man cannot accomplish. He reasoned that a divine command implies human ability (responsibility implies ability). A favorite saying of his was, “If I ought, I can.” Therefore, he taught that no one inherited the sin nature from Adam nor were they ‘born in sin’. Infants are born tabula rasa (Latin for a ‘blank slate’) and are therefore perfectly capable of obeying and pleasing God. His error here on the fundamental doctrine of original sin led to his belief that a person could live a sinless life. He said that, “a man can be without sin and keep the commandments of God, if he wishes.”

According to St. Augustine the Pelagians held

“. . . actual sin has not been transmitted from the first man to other persons by natural descent, but by imitation. Hence, likewise, they refuse to believe that in infants original sin is remitted through baptism, for they contend that no such original sin exists at all in people by their birth”

This is contrary of course to the Romans 3:9-20 but also to passages like Psalm 51:5.

5 Behold, I was born in iniquity, and in sin hath my mother conceived me.

What the Pelagians held to is the idea of sin by imitation and what this meant is that in order for sin to be eliminated bad examples need to be eliminated. This is called environmentalism. It is the idea that we sin because of bad examples around us. Our Parents set a bad example and we imitate it. Our extended family sets a bad example and we imitate it. This inevitably leads to a conclusion that the way to rid sin is to change the environment where all the bad examples are being set. This in turn, when given its head, leads to all kinds of social engineering projects whereby the attempt is made to create a better social environment so that we can create a New Humanist Man and so arrive at a better if not perfect world.

In this regard we live in a Pelagian world. People are not held responsible for their sin because their sin isn’t their fault. It is the fault of the environment. And so the Psychology industry booms as this industry is used to provide a type of salvation in helping us to overcome our environment and so become a righteous people. The Psychologist tells the patient that what is responsible for their behavior is environmentally driven. Whereas the minister tells the person that they in their sin are responsible for their behavior.

And so the Christian answer to this has always been that the problem is NOT that the sinful environment creates sinners who imitate its example but rather the problem is that sinners create sinful environments. The solution then is NOT to change the environment to change sinners. The solution is to change sinners in order to change the environment and this is done by the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit in the context of the Preaching of the Gospel and the setting forth of the Sacraments.

2. Pelagians “say that the grace of God whereby we are justified is not given freely, but according to our merit”.

Of course this is a denial that we were “Dead in our Trespasses and sins.”

From this claim stems three associated errors to back it up.

First, free will is inherent in the nature of man such that there is an “absolute autonomy for the will. Thus, for Pelagius freedom would be destroyed if the will were inclined to evil because of sin or if it needed to be strengthened by another’s help”. So, we have the denial of any interior influence on free will. The will is free.

Pelagianism, concerned to protect this Free Will, insisted that if people are born sinners by nature (if sin is something we inherit) it would be unjust for God to hold individual sinners responsible for their sin. That is why Pelagius reasoned that the human will must be totally free—inclined to neither good nor evil—or else our choices cannot be free. If our choices are not free, then we cannot be held responsible for what we do. So, how can we be held responsible for how we were born?

And the answer to this is simply that we can be held responsible by God for how we were born because we are responsible in as much as we are in Adam.

Romans 5:18 [a]Likewise then, as by the offense of one, the fault came on all men to condemnation, so by the justifying of one, the benefit abounded toward all men to the [b]justification of life.

Pelagianism denies this covenantal union in favor of the each and every sovereign individual.

All of this leads to the second error that the Law in the Old Testament as well as the preaching and example of Christ are only an external influence on us.

By external influence only the Pelagian believes that it is a influence by our observation or learning. We see the example of Christ we learn the law and then we can follow them. There is no necessity of a renewing work within us. Once observing Christ’s example. Once learning the law we can do it on our own.

Augustine summarized against this by saying,

“. .. by the law of works, God says to us, Do what I command thee; but by the law of faith we say to God, Give me what Thou commandest. Now this is the reason why the Law gives its command,—to admonish us what faith ought to do, that is, that he to whom the command is given, if he is as yet unable to perform it, may know what to ask for; but if he has at once the ability, and complies with the command, he ought also to be aware from whose gift the ability comes”.

Scripture teaches consistently that it is God’s grace working within us that is prior to our working out what God commands.

Philippians 2:12-13 — “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, 13 for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.”

Third, Jesus came to remit our past sins only, forgiveness of which we merit through good acts, but with no reference to power over sins in the future. Grace as understood by Pelagius becomes a totally external act from God to enlighten us that “we may have from the Lord God the help of knowledge, whereby we may know those things which have to be done.”

3. They “say that in mortal man . . . there is so great righteousness that even after the washing of regeneration, until he finishes this life of his, forgiveness of sins is not necessary to him”.

And so Pelagians held that a perfection could be reached in this life.

St. Augustine’s definition of perfection included a true self-awareness of one’s imperfection coupled with a movement forward toward Christ-likeness. Augustine leveraged passages like Philippians 3 where St. Paul says he desire to,

Phil. 3:11 be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith … 12 Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own.

So God gives us righteousness in Christ by faith not by our own righteousness in keeping the Law as the Pelagians would have us believe. St. Augustine says the righteousness the Pelagians are describing in this life will only be attained in our resurrected bodies in the next.

Bible scholars at the time of Pelagius recognized the contradiction between Pelagiaus teachings and Scripture. As a result, Pelagianism was condemned as heretical at church councils that included the Councils of Carthage (in 412, 416 and 418), the Council of Ephesus (431) and the Council of Orange (529). Pelagians remains as outside of orthodoxy today as it was 1600 years ago.

But their is a New Pelagianism in town and it is married to Modernity and it is called “Theistic Evolution.” Along the way I hope to tie Theistic evolution to Pelagianism. Theistic evolution is the idea that Evolution is true but adds the twist that God is the one who kicked off Evolution and who is guiding it along the way. At least some variants of Theistic evolution are teaching,

“that people do not all originate with Adam and Eve but that, “humans descended from a group of several thousand individuals who lived about 150,000 years ago.”

This attack on the historical reality of Adam and Eve, typical of Modernity, but now also found among those promoting Theistic Evolution is now in the Homeschool community through a reach out organization called Biologos,

In 2010 BioLogos president Darrel Falk wrote:

“Option #1 [that Adam and Eve are actual historical people] is the standard argument put forward by those who believe in a young earth created by God in six twenty-four hour days less than 10,000 years ago. BioLogos exists in no small part to marginalize this view from the Church. A fundamental part of our mission is to show that Option #1 is not tenable.”

This idea has been floating around at least since 1925,

“The evolution of man from lower forms of life was in itself a new and startling fact, and one that broke up the old theology. I and my contemporaries, however, accepted it as fact. The first and most obvious result of this acceptance was that we are compelled to regard the Biblical story of the Fall as not historic, as it had long been believed to be. We were compelled to regard that story as a primitive attempt to account for the presence of sin and evil in the world …. But now, in the light of the fact of evolution, the Fall, as a historic event, already questioned on other grounds, was excluded and denied by science.”

Charles E. Merriam
New Aspects of Politics, 3rd Edition — pp. 59-60

This idea though is not restricted to the Homeschool community or in musty old books but has even been recently promulgated in the CRC Banner when it was written and published this past May that,

“Traditionally we’ve been taught that Adam and Eve were the first human pair, Adam made out of dust and Eve from one of Adam’s ribs. But sustaining this doctrine is extremely difficult when we take seriously the human race as we know it today sharing ancestry with other primates such as chimpanzees. Where in the slow evolution of homo erectus and homo habilis and homo sapiens do Adam and Eve fit? We will have to find a better way of understanding what Genesis tells us about Adam and Eve, one that does justice to Genesis and also to what the Bible teaches about their connection to Jesus.”

The fact that Pelagainism is among us in terms of a Modernity that desires to interpret all of reality via the centrality of man is seen even in the CRC Banner’s Pelagian suggestion that we need to re-think Original Sin. In the quote that follows you find the Pelagainism of Modernity being advocated,

“According to this doctrine (Original Sin), the fall of Adam and Eve is an actual historical event that plunged the entire human race into sin. Ever since, both the guilt of sin and the pollution of sin, theologically speaking, have been passed on from parent to child in such a way that we all come into the world tainted by them. We say that our children are conceived and born in sin. But if Adam and Eve are not understood as real historical people, then there can hardly be an inheritance of sinfulness from parent to child all the way back to Adam—in which case the entire doctrine of original sin falls by the wayside. We will have to find a better way of understanding not only what sin is but its effect on the population in general—a way that does justice both to the Bible and to science and that helps us understand how sin works in our own lives under God.”

So, the point here is that even though Pelagianism was rejected over 1500 years ago it is making a comeback via Theistic Evolution which itself is just one component of the Modernity project.

And I’m hoping that you will join with me in giving up all this Theistic Evolution, this Modernity, This Pelagianism for Lent.

Another aspect of this is to understand that the current Pelagian Modernity project also falls under the head of interpreting the Bible with a anti-supernatural presupposition. In other words, what the Pelagain Modernity project is doing as it puts forward Theistic Evolution is that it begins with the assumption that the Supernatural can not be true and then proceeds from there reinterpreting all the supernatural of the Scriptures in the context of naturalistic presuppositions.

So, what we have is Modernity coming into the Church via Theistic Evolution and the consequence is a new kind of Pelagianism in the Church where not only Original Sin is denied but also nearly all the doctrines that make Christianity — Christianity. The result then is a Christianity that would not be recognizable to the Saints who have gone before.

Illustration — Egg

Here is the lesson:

As the Church has repeatedly rejected Pelagius assertion that Adam’s sin and guilt was NOT transferred to all of Adam’s descendants how is that we now are suggesting, in keeping with Modernity, that Adam was not a real person in space and time History? What our Denomination is promoting in print is far worse than what Pelagius promoted. At least Pelagius believed Adam was a real person who lived in space and time. This Denomination and many others are advocating, in keeping with Modernity, that all of Christianity must be re-tooled in order to fit the hair-brained speculations of a Science that is uninformed by Christian presuppositions.

Romans 5:18 teaches,

18 Therefore, as one trespass[a] led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness[b] leads to justification and life for all men.

You see the problem here right? If there was no historical Adam and no fall and so no original sin then that calls into question the whole characterizing of the Lord Christ as the Second Adam who takes away our sin and provides for a positive righteousness which Adam forfeited. If we lose a real Adam and Eve, a real Fall into sin, and the reality of Original Sin we lose the Faith once forever delivered unto the Saints. If we lose Original sin we lose Christ crucified.

And we are of all men to be pitied.

Now a brief word about Science. The way that Modernity desires to frame this is that this is a contest between Science and Theology. Nothing could be further from the truth. As I have taught you here repeatedly, Science is worldview and Theology dependent. This is not a contest between the facts of Science vs. Ideas from the Bible. This is a contest between a Science that is informed by a Christian worldview vs. a Science that is informed by a Pagan Worldview. It is a clash of Theologies. But the Modernity / Pelagian cause is advanced by telling you that Scripture has been overwhelmed by their Science. Don’t you believe it. Remember, scientific “facts” require a philosophy of fact to make sense and if your philosophy of fact is in error all your facts will be in error. We are contending that the Theistic Evolutionists who are part of the Modernity project have their philosophy of fact wrong and so their are serious problems with their facts.

Illustration — Puzzle Box.

Conclusion,

This has vast implications,

If you would like to see the consequences of this Pelagian version of Modernity that yields a theology where original sin is denied — the place to look is at the Soviet Gulags, the Cambodian Killing Fields, or the Cuban Psychiatric wards. If man has no original sin then we have no reason to think that man is basically sinful. If man is a blank slate and not sinful then man can be molded to become a better if not perfect human being. Historically speaking, part of that molding process is the Gulag, the killing fields, and the Communist Psychiatric wards.

If man is not basically sinful then man is either basically good, and only needs to discover his goodness, or man is neutral and so is a plastic that can be molded to fit the State’s ends and so needs to be socially engineered to achieve Utopian desires.

Most people don’t have the capacity to trace out the consequences of their ideas and so they unwittingly embrace what their Church is doing in reinterpreting Christianity through a Modernity grid that resurrects Pelagianism via theistic evolution.

The few of us who get it must raise our voice to protest this silliness that, if given its head, will get us all killed.

Critiquing Kirsten Powers’ Christian Analysis

Kirsten Powers is a info-babe on FOX News. Her politics are left and her religion is allegedly Christian. She’s all the rage of much of the pop Christianity crowd. In a recent USA article she took up for sodomite marriage.

Below I fisk Kirsten’s article,

KP wrote,

What’s the matter with Kansas? A bill protecting the religious freedom of businesses and individuals to refuse services to same-sex couples passed the state House of Representatives last week. It was blessedly killed in the state Senate on Tuesday.

Similar bills have cropped up in a half-dozen states in an effort to protect anti-gay religious believers against lawsuits. A florist in Washington state, a Colorado baker and a New Mexico photographer have been sued for refusing to serve gay couples getting married. They say to do so would be to “celebrate” nuptials at odds with their Christian faith.

Bret responds,

Now note here that suits are being brought against private businesses because they refused to sell their services / products to people. Is Powers really suggesting that private businesses ought to be forced, against their will, to engage in commerce with people whose money they do not want? Is Powers advancing the idea that the State can again deny citizens their freedom of association?

Isn’t Powers and people like her tolerant enough to allow people the liberty to make their own decisions? Should all florists, bakers, and photographers be forced into business contract or is it not enough to allow the free market to provide florists, bakers, and photographers who want the money of perverts?

What is the matter with Powers that she would ask what is the matter with Kansas? What is the matter with Powers that she finds it so difficult to understand that some Christians take their faith seriously enough that they don’t want to be associated with absurdity and perversity?

KP wrote,

It’s probably news to most married people that their florist and caterer were celebrating their wedding union. Most people think they just hired a vendor to provide a service. It’s not clear why some Christian vendors are so confused about their role here.

Whether Christians have the legal right to discriminate should be a moot point because Christianity doesn’t prohibit serving a gay couple getting married. Jesus calls his followers to be servants to all. Nor does the Bible call service to another an affirmation.

Bret responds,

1.) It’s probably news to most info-babe desk jockeys that some businesses have standards beyond making a buck. It is probably news to most info-babes who read monitors for a living that there exist businessmen in this country who realize that their tacit acceptance of sodomy in the social order — as seen in their providing a service — is not something they want to countenance even if they wouldn’t be directly celebrating a wedding union. (Oh, and by the way, we do not concede that it is even possible for two people of the same sex to get married.)

2.) But Christianity does prohibit sodomy in the strongest of terms and despite Powers inability to connect the dots some people can connect the dots enough to see that providing business goods to sodomites is one way that a Christian can indirectly support what Scripture prohibits. One wonders if Powers would be OK with a businessman selling cutlery to Jack the Ripper? After all, Scripture does not prohibit selling cutlery to those who use knives to rip open women.

3.) Jesus does call to be a servant of all within the context of Biblical law. To suggest that we, by our goods and services, must indirectly facilitate and sanction criminal behavior because we are to be “servants of all” is to ridiculous to contemplate.

4.) Creating a social order context where criminal behavior is approved of and celebrated is indeed an affirmation, Powers protestation to the contrary notwithstanding.

KP wrote,

Adam Hamilton, pastor of the United Methodist Church of the Resurrection, the largest church in Kansas, pointed out to me what all Christians should know: “Jesus routinely healed, fed and ministered to people whose personal lifestyle he likely disagreed with.” This put Jesus at odds with religious leaders, who believed they were sullied by associating with the “wrong” people.

Hamilton suggested that “if this legislation were to pass … those who wish to refuse service to gay and lesbian people (should be required) to publicly post (their policy). This would allow gay and lesbian people and all other patrons to know before entering a business.”

He’s right. Christians backing this bill are essentially arguing for homosexual Jim Crow laws.

Bret responds,

1.) Jesus did eat with the outcasts but the difference between who Jesus ate with in 1st century Palestine and providing a service today that helps create a social order that embraces sodomy is that those that Jesus ate with understood themselves to be outcasts and sinners. This is largely not true today. Instead the contemporary perverted are proud of their perversion and deny the sinfulness and criminality of their behavior. Would Jesus have dined with those who would have told him to go penetrate Himself because of his insistence that sodomy is sin? To ask the question is to answer it.

2.) Throughout the Scriptures when Jesus speaks, heals, and consorts with sinners he is constantly calling them to repentance or they show up in the context of their repenting. Contemporary sodomites are not a particularly repenting lot.

3.) It terms of Powers “Jim Crow Laws” quip, it should be asked if she is suggesting that any kind of discrimination is automatically out of bounds for businesses? Should businesses be forced to sell Kiddie Cheerleader Outfits to Pedophiles who want to dress up 8 year old little boys or girls in order to live out their sexual fantasy? Would it be a bad thing to embrace Pedophile Jim Crow laws? If it is not a bad thing to embrace Pedophile Jim Crow laws then what is the problem with embracing sodomy Jim Crow laws? You see, Powers whole question presupposes the normalcy of this behavior but sodomy is every bit as criminal as Pedophilia even if people like Powers have become so acclimated to it that they can no longer see its criminality.

KP wrote,

Evangelical pastor Andy Stanley leads North Point Ministries, the second largest church in the U.S. He told me he finds it “offensive that Christians would leverage faith to support the Kansas law.” He said, “Serving people we don’t see eye to eye with is the essence of Christianity. Jesus died for a world with which he didn’t see eye to eye. If a bakery doesn’t want to sell its products to a gay couple, it’s their business. Literally. But leave Jesus out of it.”

Christians serve unrepentant murderers through prison ministry. So why can’t they provide a service for a same-sex marriage?

1.) Serving people we don’t see eye to eye with is the essence of Christianity? I thought the essence of Christianity was the finished work of Jesus Christ for sinners like me?

2.) If serving people we don’t see eye to eye with is the essence of Christianity was Jesus being un-Christian when He drove the Bankers out of the Temple with a whip?

3.) Stanley wants to leave Jesus in it when he suggests that Businesses should sell their services to sodomites but he wants to leave Jesus out of it when businesses don’t want to provide services for sodomite marriages. Curious reasoning that.

4.) I would be glad to serve in a prison ministry to unrepentant sodomites who are incarcerated for their crimes.

5.) Christians serve unrepentant murderers though prison ministry. So why can’t they provide a service for Necrophiliacs and people into Bestiality? Stupid Christians.

You see the problem throughut Powers’ article is she assumes that this is something that our social order should be fine with. As such, since we should be fine with it we should be tolerant enough to get with the program. Christians, on the other hand, are not fine with the normalizing of sodomy for our social order that Powers desires to embrace. As long as she, and others like her, are going to assume that this is normal, we will never be able to agree.

KP wrote,

Some claim it’s because marriage is so sacred. But double standards abound. Christian bakers don’t interrogate wedding clients to make sure their behavior comports with the Bible. If they did, they’d be out of business. Stanley said, “Jesus taught that if a person is divorced and gets remarried, it’s adultery. So if (Christians) don’t have a problem doing business with people getting remarried, why refuse to do business with gays and lesbians.”

Maybe they should just ask themselves, “What would Jesus do?” I think he’d bake the cake.

Here Powers notes inconsistency and then argues that all because people are inconsistent by serving some people that they may well should not serve therefore they should serve others that they should not serve. The problem in this scenario is not in Christian businesses not serving sodomite marriage. The problem is that they do serve lecherous marriages.

Of course it is far more obvious when two men show up at your bakery giggling about marriage to know what the score is then to know what the score is when a man and woman walk in who have committed adultery and are now going to be married, having left their former spouse. It is a bit much to expect a business to interview its clientele about their morality but one doesn’t have to interrogate about morality when two men show up talking about how they are going to tie the knot. As such Powers last point is merely special pleading.

The Shortfalls of Movement Libertarianism

Dear Pastor,

I just read an article making the case that Libertarians make good Christians.

Why Christians Make Great Libertarians

I know you like to say that Libertariansim is good as far as it goes but that when it is seen as a system authoritative in itself that it is a positive evil. Could you explain, in your estimation why it is the case that Libertarians who have embraced movement Libertarianism don’t make good Christians?

Leland

Dear Leland,

Thank you for the opportunity to deal with this again. I do think that Libertarianism does at points coincide with Biblical Christianity but as a ideological movement it is opposed to Biblical Christianity. Biblical Christians and Libertarians, for example, both agree that the State should be minimal. However, movement Libertarianism tends to absolutize the individual while Biblical Christianity absolutizes God. As such because of these different absolutes the definition of liberty is different for each. For the movement Libertarian liberty is largely defined by something they call the Non Aggression Principle whereas for the Biblical Christian Liberty is that behavior which is lived out consistent with God’s Law Word. Here are some other ways in which I can see that movement Libertarianism is not consistent with Biblical Christianity.

1.) Movement Libertarians absolutize Liberty so that it turns into anarchy. (Each man does what is right in his own eyes.) Biblical Liberty is ordered liberty — ordered by God’s law word.

2.) Libertarians turn man from Homo Adorans (man the worshiper) into Homo oeconomicus (man the economic being). Movement libertarian reduce man to the sum of his market decisions and turn his whole being into one of economics. Biblical Christians do not see man as primarily an economic being and so the thinking of Biblical Christians on social order issues does not reduce man to the sum of his economic decisions.

3.) Movement Libertarians have no standard by which to measure Liberty except the sovereign autonomous self and its fiat word. Libertarianism insists on doing that which is good for the individual but that which is defined as good in only in reference to the individual.

4.) Movement Libertarainism atomizes man and completely misses His covenant jurisdictions. As such men become free floating integers that are not inherently connected to any covenantal identity. If Socialism makes the mistake of seeing man only as part of the hive, movement Libertarianism makes the mistake of seeing only man as unrelated to anything but his own subjective self (ego).

5.) Libertarians don’t make good Christians because as Rushdoony taught Libertarianism is merely the flip side of the coin to Marxism. Marxism and Movement Libertarianism presuppose one another. Neither get correct the One and the Many and in getting the One and the Many wrong they serve the purposes of each other’s errors in that regard.

Thanks for writing Leland,