Iron Ink

Baptism Charge … Psalm 22:9-10

Psalm 22:8″Commit yourself to the LORD; let Him deliver him; Let Him rescue him, because He delights in him.” 9Yet You are He who brought me forth from the womb; You made me trust when upon my mother’s breasts. 10Upon You I was cast from birth; You have been my God from my mother’s womb.…

First, note here that the Psalmist emphasizes that the relationship between himself as an infant and His God was a relationship totally established by God.

“You made me trust when upon my mother’s breasts”

The Psalmist had a redemptive relationship with God from the time he was in the womb. And this was so because God made it so.

When we baptize infants it is not primarily about what the infant has done. In Baptism we are merely echoing the Psalmist that God owns our children from birth.

Some would contend that Baptism should not be done since babies cannot have faith and yet we find here the Psalmist saying that He was made to trust when upon His mother’s breast. Clearly, if God’s revelation says that the child upon His mother’s breast trusted God, then who are we to say that such an infant trust is impossible?

But the idea of infant trust or faith is not as ridiculous as Baptists and others like to make it sound. The reasoning goes that since infants can’t trust … can’t “have faith” therefore infants should not be baptized until they can trust and can have faith.

Before unraveling this line of thought do keep in mind again that Baptism is not primarily about our actions. Baptism is about God’s actions and God’s claim upon us and our children. To argue that we should not Baptize our children because they don’t understand is like arguing that we should not give our children’s names because they don’t understand.

Having said that, we would contend however that children can have faith, can trust, and do understand. Observe the newborn who knows his mother’s voice. If an infant knows and trusts the voice of His parents and finds security in that voice and in that presence why would we think it impossible that an infant knows and trusts His covenant King?

Now, as that child grows their trust will increase as they get to know the parents but what grows must first exist in seed form. It is just so with a child’s trust in God. The child who was made to trust God upon His mother’s breast will grow in that trust of God as the years fall away.

Baptism of infants merely recognizes this reality. Baptism demonstrates that God’s claim on us is always prior to our claim on Him. Further, infant baptism does no violence to the idea that salvation is by faith alone. The God who makes us to trust upon our Mother’s breast is the God who works in infants that very real trust. God doesn’t need our expanded capacities of understanding in order to work “trust” in us. God doesn’t need for us to be older in order to be saved by faith alone. All of our experience should teach us that the passage of years most certainly does not automatically make one a riper candidate to put faith in God. Indeed, as Trust in God only happens in people who are resurrected from being cognitively and spiritually dead in their sins it seems altogether appropriate to say that Babies are prime candidates to be made to put their Trust in God from their mother’s womb and so be Baptized.

Let’s look at this infant Baptism from another angle. Nobody, I know of, argues that since infants cannot understand their parents therefore, their parents should not speak to them. When the baby is fussy, the mother will make a promise saying, “I’ll be there in just a second honey.” The mother understands that at some level her child intuitively understands. Well, in Baptism God is speaking to His and Our babies.

We might speak promises to our babies such as,

“Mommy will be there to change your diaper in a second,” or,
“Just be patient a second, and I will feed you,” or,
“I know, you’re so tired, I will put you down for a nap in just a second.”

In the Waters of Baptism God is similarly speaking His promises to His covenant seed,

“I shall be your God…”
“Lo, I am with you always,”
“I will never leave you nor forsake you,”
“Nothing shall separate you from the Love of God.”

Would any of us dare tell either a Mother or God that she or He is silly for talking to babies who don’t understand? Of course we wouldn’t and yet that is precisely what those who deny God’s sign of the covenant to His and Our babies are saying at some level.

“Those babies can’t understand, so why bother giving them the sign of the covenant?”

And yet the Psalmist contradicts such people by saying,

“You made me trust when upon my mother’s breasts. 10Upon You I was cast from birth; You have been my God from my mother’s womb.…”

And one wonderful thing about a Baptism service is that we hear again God lisping to us as Adults those same fundamental truths that He coo-cooed to us when we were babies. Though now we are advanced in years, and perhaps a little beaten up by the wear and tear of life, we hear again those delightful and soul-stirring promises as they are spoken to another generation….

“Fear not, for I am with you little flock.”

Of course, this is only the beginning of the Baptismal journey. As the years pass the children are to be spoken to repeatedly throughout their lives of God’s promises. These promises are to be spoken to them by their parents at every turn, and they are to be spoken to them by Word and Sacrament Lord’s Day by Lord’s Day. They are to be trained to continue to Trust in the God who made them to Trust Him. Baptism is not a magical talisman that relieves us from attending to a diligent usage of God’s means of Grace. Baptism is that first Grace that anticipates all future grace.

For those who deny infant Baptism, if I could I would awaken in you how backward a Christian faith it is that insists that a man must be old enough to appeal to God before God can claim a man in Baptism I would. But, alas, I do not have that capability. Only God can teach you that.

Government Class Week #1

Government

Washington quote — The first President of the United States reputedly said:

“Government is not reason, it is not eloquence,—it is force! Like fire, it is a dangerous servant, and a fearful master; never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action.”

Definition — Government (Noah Webster 1828 An American Dictionary of the English Language

1.) Direction; regulation

2.) Control; restraint

The exercise of authority; direction and restraint exercised over the actions of men in communities, societies, or states; the administration of public affairs, according to the established constitution, laws, and usages, or by arbitrary edict.

Synonym

management,
administration
authority

law

ministry

politics

power

regime

rules

states

union

bureaucracy

command

control

direction

domination

dominion

empires

execution

executive

governance

guidance

influence

jurisdiction

patronage

polity

predominance

presidency

regency

regimentation

regulation

restraint

sovereignty

statecraft

superintendence

superiority

supervision

supremacy

sway

Antonym

anarchy

chaos

coup

insurrection

lawlessness

mutiny

revolt

revolution

PURPOSE of Government

1.) To glorify God by ordering all of our lives according to His standard of law and justice.

2.) To rule consistent with God’s standard

In the purpose statement. we find that Government always occurs by some standard. Either we will rule or be ruled in Government by God’s standard or we will rule or be ruled by the arbitrary standard of some false god.

NATURE of Government —

Internally — Self-discipline
Externally — Force

Origin of Government — Genesis 1 creation “And God called”

Genesis 1 in the Garden // Adam rules over the beast…(Naming)

See Westminster Confession for God as Governor — Governs (Providence)

1. That there is a providence may be inferred from the nature and perfections of God; from the dependent nature of the creatures; from the continued order and harmony visible in all parts of the universe; from the remarkable judgments that have been inflicted on wicked men, and the signal deliverances that have been granted to the Church and people of God; and from the prediction of future events, and their exact fulfilment. In the Bible, the providence of God is everywhere asserted. “His kingdom ruleth over all,” and he “worketh all things after the counsel of his own will.” – Ps. ciii. 19; Eph. i. 11.

Two things are included in the notion of providence,—the preservation and the government of all things. God preserves all things by continuing or upholding them in existence. The Scripture explicitly asserts, that “he upholds all things by the word of his power,” and that “by him all things consist.”—Heb. i. 3; Col. i. 17. He preserves the different species of creatures, and sustains the several creatures in their individual beings; hence he is called “the Preserver of man and beast.”—Job. vii. 20; Ps. xxxvi. 6. God governs all things by directing and disposing them to the end for which he designed them. “Our God is in the heavens, he hath done whatsoever he pleased.”—Ps. cxv. 3. “He doeth according to his will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth: and none can stay his hand, or say unto him, What doest thou?”—Dan. iv. 36. The government of God may be considered in a twofold view,—natural and moral. This twofold view of his government arises from the two general classes of creatures which are the objects of it. The irrational and inanimate creatures are the subjects of his natural government. The rational part of the creation, or those creatures who are the fit subjects of moral law, as angels and men, are the subjects of hismoral government.

HC — LD #10

Genesis 2:15 — To dress and to keep (to Govern)

Some suggest that the Fall was a result of Adam failing to Govern. The argument goes that if Adam had governed per God’s instruction the Serpent would not have been in the Garden to tempt Eve.

An aside — Notice God names Adam showing his direct sovereignty over Adam but Adam is the one who names not only the animals but also Eve thus communicating man’s call to govern women.

Goal of Government — 1.) To Glorify God

2.) To order all things as consistent with God’s revelation for ordering and so to magnify God by living the good life.

Standard in relation to Governance / Government — All Government rules by some standard.

Varying standards may be the autonomous self, or it may be God’s law, or it may be God’s law as misinterpreted by the autonomous self or it may be by the standard of 50% plus 1 (mob rule)

Government as Inescapable category –You will never meet a person who is not governed. Even in anarchy the government is each individual self doing what is right in his own eyes. He is the sovereign governor and so he is being governed by the self.
Government and Worldview — You can know a great deal about a person by knowing who or what they are governed by. In point of fact if you can locate that which is governing a person who can determine how close you can get to that person. If a person is governed by their own selfish desires then you know you want to stay away.

Tell me what a man is Governed by and I will tell you the person he is.

II.) Government starts with the individual

Government is moral and personal before it is intstitutional.

Self-government undergirds all institutions governments

1.) family government
2.) church government
3.) civil government

If a man cannot govern himself by internal restraint (self-government) he will have to be governed by external restraint.

Some have argued, that it is in the interest of an institutional Government that desires to be God to do all it can to break down the ability of its citizenry at self-governance because with that lack of internal restraint comes the necessity of external restraint and so the growth of Statist Government to that end. In such a case it is in the interest of the pagan state to introduce chaos into the personal morality of its citizenry so that it has to be that which provides societal controls.

Examples — Weimar Republic …. Soviet Experiment … Modern USA

What is Government?

1.) Sovereignty — Legitimacy to rule

As all Authority comes from God (Romans 13:1) because only God is answerable to no one but Himself all other authority is therefore delegated authority and therefore limited authority to govern. God delegates this limited governing authority to every institution (Family, Church, Civil)

A desire to have the governing sovereignty of God often leads to madness (Daniel 4:30f). Nero, Caligula,

“Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

God takes legitimate governance so seriously that He calls rebellion to be as the sin of witchcraft. (I Sam. 15:23)

External Governments can remain legitimate even though those in position of authority in those Governments can act illegitimately. Then it becomes a question of how long the practice of ruling illegitimately can last before the Government itself is no longer legitimate.

This is an answer that requires Wisdom. For my part, I believe we long ago reached that point with the US Government. The US Government is no longer legitimate and any obedience we render up is not due to its legitimacy but is a matter of wisdom recognizing that they have the biggest guns.

II.) Representation: Accountability to the rule of another (I Cor. 11:3, cf. 3:23)

All Governments represent the sovereignty of another Government. This is just to say that no human Government is absolute. Only God’s Governance is absolute.

Exodus 18:17-23 as an example of Representative Government

III.) Law — A moral code by which to rule

All governments follow an ethical code. Ethical code like government itself is an inescapable category. It is never a question of “will there be an ethical code, but only the question of “which ethical code shall we have.” Even if no ethical code is allowed, (total anarchy) what one has is the ethical code of no ethical code.

In the civil realm the civil magistrate is to render judgment consistent with what God calls “good,” and “evil.” (Romans 13:3-4).

IV.) Jurisdiction: Authority to enforce sanctions

Law without the ability or will to enforce is no law.

Illustration — Recent statements VP debate that while abortion should be illegal there should be no sanctions brought against a woman who chooses to have an abortion. No penalty after transgression of law … no law.

Family sanctions — Rod (Proverbs 13:24, 22:15, 23:13, 29:15)
Church sanctions — Keys (Mt. 16:19, 18:15-20)
Civil sanctions — Sword (Gen. 9:6-7, Romans 13:4, I Pt. 2:14)

V.) Continuity: Stability of Government (Dt. 28)

VOCABULARY

Aberration
Bandy
Baneful
Bedraggled
Candor
Debacle
Dank
Ebullience
Fabulist
Facetious

Week 1

Government — Definition

God’s overarching Gov. Isaiah 9:6-7

Christ is the Sovereign of the world (Eph. 1:20-23)

Bow to God’s Government or be destroyed — Psalm 2

World History is a long chronicle of rebellion to God’s Government

II. ) Self-control

Galatians 5:22

Proverbs

Lack of self-control

Eve
David — Bathsheba
Moses — Striking as oppose to touching the rock
Amnon — II Sam. 13

Standard by which we determine self control. II Tim. 3:16

Ability to be self-controlled — Regeneration (John 3)

Consequences of not being self-controlled

Control from the outside (Top Down)

If you will not be self controlled in family parents discipline (Prov. 13:24)

If you will not be self controlled in Church Elders Discipline

If you will not be self controlled in civil realm magistrate disciplines you

(Now with everything upside down … anarcho-tyranny)

All depends on a citizenry being regenerated. Without a proper belief system, all that is left is Mahat systems to control.

Quote — Winthrop (pg. 17)

Week #2

III.) Family Governments (Rod)

A.) Structure

1.) Trustee

When the state is weak, the extended family or clan is the primary social power, and the state itself is seen as a union of families rather than individuals. Rights and property belong primarily to the family itself, and its current living members see themselves as mere trustees, charged with passing along what they have received. The family is the primary instrument of justice: the family itself is held accountable for the misdeeds of its members, and each member has a duty to avenge wrongs against his kinsman. Trustee society is naturally polytheistic, with each clan having its private gods. Greece, Rome, and the Germanic barbarians all began with the trustee family system.

2) The domestic family.

As the state gains power, it takes over the role of enforcing justice and tries to stamp out the private justice of the trustee family. Universal religions extend moral duties to non-kinsmen. With the spread of trade, it becomes useful for a family to be able to sell the property which it had been holding in trust. Out of these pressures arises the domestic family, the type which Zimmerman believes constitutes the best balance of family and society. The domestic family consists of the living members of the nuclear family unit: father, mother, and children. Family property belongs to the paterfamilias; the living no longer hold it in trust. Rearing children is the family’s primary function. Religion provides strong social sanctions against divorce, childlessness, and sexual immorality.

3) The atomistic family.

As individualism and impiety spread, the ideological foundations of the domestic family are undermined, leading to the atomistic family. In an atomistic society, marriage is seen as a temporary and socially unimportant contract between independent individuals. As atomism spreads, divorce becomes common, adultery loses its stigma, sexual perversions of all sorts come to be accepted and even celebrated, children rebel against their parents, childbearing comes to be seen as a burden, and the population implodes. A society cannot survive without the will to produce a next generation, and so the decedent society is eventually replaced by a new civilization embracing a more virile (trustee) family type, and the cycle begins again. Greece after the Peloponnesian War, Rome during the late empire, and the contemporary West have the atomic family as their dominant type.

It is in the interest of the State to undermine the family since an Atomistic family is no threat to the State’s increasing power. Where the family is weak there the State can assume the former’s authority and power of the family to itself.

Zimmerman sees Western civilization headed for destruction if it cannot revive the domestic family. One of the heroes of his story is the Emperor Augustus, whose anti-adultery and anti-celibacy laws can be seen as a rational attempt to protect the Roman family and hold Rome’s destructively atomistic tendencies at bay. This history’s most important hero, however, is the Roman Catholic Church, which was forced to fight a war for the domestic family on two fronts, against both Roman atomism and barbarian trustee-ism. By the High Middle Ages, the Church had established her own sacramental version of the domestic family as the primary type in Christendom. This work was undone by the smart-aleck partisans of divorce and immorality of the Renaissance and Enlightenment.

B.) Type

1.) Patriarchy

Father rule

Ephesians 5:22 – 23 Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord.For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body.

I Corinthians 11:9 Nor was man created for the woman, but woman for the man.

I Timothy 2:11 Let a woman learn in silence with all submission. 12 And I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man, but to be in silence. 13 For Adam was formed first, then Eve. 14 And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived, fell into transgression.

Titus 2:5 3 the older women likewise, that they be reverent in behavior, not slanderers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things— 4 that they admonish the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, 5 to be discreet, chaste, homemakers, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be blasphemed.

2.) Matriarchy

Mother rule

3.) Communal

Community rule

4.) Anarchistic

Week #3

IV.) Church Government

1.) Episcopalianism (or “prelacy”) is the rule of the church by monarchial bishops. That is, one man may govern those under him (whether members or other elders), and he need not be chosen by the people to be their leader, but can be appointed by a higher agency. Authority thus rests in the one human priest at the top (a pope or archbishop), is then communicated to his subordinates, and extends from there over all of the congregations.

2.) Congregationalism (or better: “independency”) is the rule of the church by every member and the independence of every congregation from all others. Authority now rests with the many at the bottom. Technically speaking, for any given decision which the church may make, every member within the congregation has the same authority as every other; ruling boards are simply an administrative convenience (whose decisions can by overthrown by the congregation as a whole). Moreover, no individual congregation is subject to external jurisdiction; associations of churches are voluntary and have no independent power over the internal affairs of their member churches.

3.) Presbyterianism is the rule of the church by multiple, elected elders—not the dictates of one man, nor those of the whole congregation. These elders must be chosen by the people from among themselves (men to whom they are willing to vow submission), but also examined and confirmed by the present governing board of elders in the congregation or regional body of elders (the presbytery).

All congregations are connected with each other under the jurisdiction of the presbytery, and all presbyteries are connected under the jurisdiction of the “general assembly” of elders from the entire church—thus allowing a system of graded courts for the purposes of appeal and redress of errors made in subordinate ruling bodies.

Biblical Pattern

Christ directs his church through the Scriptures, His own self-revelation and authoritative guidance. Let me offer here a brief summary of the biblical material which I believe is relevant to determining how Christ would have His church governed. The Bible is not silent on this matter.

There is no distinction between “elders” and “bishops” (Titus 1:5-7; Acts 20:17,28); these represent the same office and order.
Each congregation and center of leadership is to have a plurality of elders (Acts 14:23; 20:17; Phil. 1:1), not one-man rule.
These elders have oversight of the church (Acts 20:28; I Pet. 5:2-3) and are thus responsible to rule the congregation (I Tim. 3:5; 5:17; I Thes. 5:12; Heb. 13:7, 17, 24). They judge among the brothers (cf. I Cor. 6:5) and, in contrast to all the members, they do the rebuking (I Tim. 5:20). Christ calls them to use the “keys of the kingdom” to bind and loose (Matt.16: 19; 18: 18; John 20: 23)—these keys being the preaching of the gospel (I John I :3), administering of the sacraments (Matt. 28:19-20; I Cor. 11: 23ff.), and the exercise of discipline (Matt. 18:17; I Cor. 5:1-5).
The elders are assisted in their ministry by “deacons” who give attention to the ministry of mercy (Phil. 1:1; Acts 6:1-6; cf. I Tim. 3:8-13).
The office-bearers in the church are nominated and elected by the members of the congregation (e.g. Acts 6:5-6), but must also be examined, confirmed and ordained by the present board of elders (Acts 6:6; 13: 1-3; I Tim. 4: 14).
Members of the church have the right to appeal disputed matters in the congregation to their elders for resolution, and if the dispute is with those local elders, to appeal to the regional governing body (the presbytery) or. beyond that, to the whole general assembly (Acts 15). The decisions of the wider governing bodies are authoritative in all the local congregations (Acts 15:22-23, 28, 30; 16:1-5).

Dabney and McAtee On Equality

“Again: we have all heard the famous maxim: ‘All men are created equal.’ There are two species of equality of British freedom, whose watchword is: ‘Every Englishman is equal before the law.’ It does not mean that the peasant is equal to the peer in the list of his particular franchises — these are different. But the peasant has the same right to his narrower franchises as the peer has to his wider. The same law protects both, on the same fundamental principles of justice. The maxim, in this sense, does not assert that nature has made men literally equal in strength, in sex, in capacity of mind, in virtue, in fortitude, in health. Hence it holds that a true and equitable equality must distribute different grades of franchise to these different beings, according to their capacities to use them. It does not hold that the child justly wields the same set of privileges as the father. It does not believe that the woman has, for instance, the same ‘inalienable’ right to sing bass and wear a beard with her husband. But this maxim, after leaving Providence to distribute to different classes of mankind the several allotments of privilege they have capacity to improve aright, claims for the protection of all the common sanction of justice and the golden rule.

Then, there is the equality of the Jacobin: a very different thing, which teaches that mechanical sameness of function, franchise, and privilege, in each detail, is a right, ‘inalienable,’ ‘natural,’ and ‘self-evident.’ That whatever particular franchise is enjoyed by the highest citizen, must also be attainable by the lowest: or these sacred institutions are outraged. The question between these is a question in philosophy: not a very easy one, if we may judge by the frequency which thinking men confuse the two together. Let us see what practical fruits this confusion to two abstract theories has borne.

One crop of those fruits might have been seen in Paris a century ago. ‘The Reign of Terror,’ was established. The guillotine stood before the Thuilleries ‘en permavence.’ The gutters ran daily with blood. The prisons, filled by vile delators with thousands of the noblest and best , were emptied by the ‘Septembrigans,’ through wholesale massacre. To have belonged to a privileged class was the sufficient crime. To assert the privilege of any class, in church or state, was treason. This was the logical result of the philosophy.

We pass over to America in 1865, and we see the second harvest of death from this same philosophy. If the Jacobin equality is that which intuition teaches to be ‘inalienable,’ then it was inconsistent that the Africans, though pagans, aliens, lately savage, and utterly unfit to wield the higher franchise of civic life without ruining society and themselves, should be ‘held to service or labor’ under other citizens. It was iniquity that they should be denied any franchise attainable by any other citizen. As this was ‘self-evident,’ and the equality ‘inalienable,’ no constitutions, laws, or covenants could be legitimate the difference between African and American. But they all became null and void in attempting to do so. Yea, God himself was quite roundly notified, that he had better not legitimate it, or he would be repudiated also! And when some eight millions were unable to see this Jacobin logic so, a quarter of a million of them were killed, their homes desolated, and half a continent clad in ruin!”

Robert L. Dabney — D.D.

Secular Discussions — pg. 291-293

Equality, per Dabney, in a Christian Worldview, is particular, applied to all people in their particularity wherein God has created and placed them, while in the Jacobin worldview equality is universal and so works to the end of denial God’s distinctions. In my estimation, the Jacobin variant of equality arises out of the conviction of the Jacobin that man and God are equal. From that premise blooms their conviction that all other distinctions must be eliminated in the name of and in pursuit of Jacobin equality.

One thing is certain that the flattening out of all distinctions and differences in the name of equality if it does not begin with man’s conviction that God and man are equal, will certainly end with God and man being seen as equal. In a world where, in the name of equality, the distinctions between men and women are sacrificed, the distinctions between the disabled and the healthy are pretended not to be relevant, and the distinction between people groups denied it is inevitable that the distinction between God and man should be negated.

Dabney didn’t live to see what this doctrine of egalitarianism did to Russia and China. Where the 18th century French Revolution and the 19th century American Revolution murdered their hundred of thousands, the 20th-century egalitarian Revolutions murdered their ten’s of millions.

It is my conviction that the church’s errant embrace of some version of Jacobin egalitarianism is to our generation what the Church’s errant embrace of Justification by works was to the Magisterial Reformers. In 2016 the embrace of God ordained distinctions is the article by which the Church stands or falls. Just as in the 16th century the Church’s future depended upon following Scripture and getting Justification by faith alone correct, so in the 21st century the Church’s future depends upon following Scripture and getting the embrace of God ordained distinctions correct. Failure in getting this right will result in the amalgamation of Christianity with all other faith systems into a mono-religious faith system. Failure in getting this right means the destruction of the Biblical family. Failure in getting this right means the equalizing of God and man.

A great deal is at stake. May the Lord Christ grant us grace to fight.

On Voting Third Party During Presidential Election Cycles

Yesterday I was having a conversation with folks counted as good friends. We were sitting underneath the shade of our beautiful maple trees at Church during our fellowship meal. Some were insisting that my intention to vote for Darrell Castle for President is a wasted vote. Of course, I politely demurred.

In this short piece, I want to pursue the reasoning as to why voting third party in Presidential cycles is not only not a wasted vote but a positive good.

The reason voting for Darrell Castle in 2016 is not a wasted vote is the long term vision. When third party candidates receive votes the effect is that in later election cycles the major party candidates look at those voters who voted third party previously and ask themselves, “How can I secure those voters for myself who voted for that third party candidate in the previous election cycle.” As a result, the parties begin to shift in order to capture voters who previously voted third party in previous election cycles.

If people, with contrary interests to the candidates they are voting for, continue to vote for major party candidates, like Trump and / or Clinton, that they only barely agree with the result is that the major parties will conclude that they really do not need to shift in order to gain what might have been a well placed third party vote. HOWEVER, if people refuse to vote for the major party candidates in any given election cycle then in the next election cycle Presidential candidates will begin to ask themselves, “what must I do to secure those third party voters,” and will shift accordingly in those voters direction.

1968 is a classic example of this. In 1968 the Democrats lost the deep South to the third party candidacy of Geroge Wallace. In 1972, instead of taking those Wallace voters seriously the Democrats tacked harder to the left with McGovern. However, Nixon went after those “68” Wallace votes and captured them giving Nixon a HUGE landslide while at the same time turning the deep South Republican for two generations now.

Voting third party for George Wallace in 1968 was definitely not a wasted vote.

Something similar happened with all the third party votes cast for the Socialist Presidential candidacies of Eugene Debs, and later Norman Thomas over several election cycles in the early 20th century. Eventually, Democrats decided to go after those Socialist votes and with the candidacy of FDR those third party votes found a major party candidate who appealed to them. All those third party votes over the years had not been wasted as the Democratic party became the party of Debs / Thomas Socialism though retaining the name “Democrat.”

Norman Thomas is even reputed to have said

“I no longer need to run as a Presidential Candidate for the Socialist Party. The Democratic Party has adopted our platform.”

The effect of the Republicans embracing the independent voters of Wallace’s 1968 campaign pushed the Republican party further to the right. The effect of the Democrats embracing the independent voters of the Debs – Thomas campaigns was to push the Democratic party further to the left.

The point for our purposes is that those Independent votes of previous election cycles were not wasted votes. History teaches that they had an impact on later election cycles. If those Independent voters had not voted Independent and said to themselves instead, “I have to vote for one of the major parties if I want my vote to count,” neither of the parties would have had the later incentive to move in the direction of those third party voters in order to capture that vote.

So, we see that voting Independent is not a wasted vote.

Ask The Pastor — Why Not Trump? — A Conversation With A Christian Trumper

μὴ γίνεσθε ἑτεροζυγ.] Bengel: “ne fiatis, molliter pro: ne sitis.”

“Be ye not unequally yoked”

God does not forbid all intercourse with the heathen whatever (see 1 Corinthians 5:10; 1 Corinthians 10:27; 1 Corinthians 7:12), but the making common cause with heathen efforts and aims, the entering into the heathen element of life. There is no ground for assuming exclusively special references (such as to sacrificial banquets or to mixed marriages), any more than for excluding such reference.

Meyers NT Commentary

II Corinthians 6:11-18– “Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers.”

It is wrong for believers to join with the wicked and profane. The word unbeliever applies to all destitute of true faith. True pastors will caution their beloved children in the gospel, not to be unequally yoked.

Matthew Henry commentary

Lori Thomas wrote,

“If we are “yoked” by our vote for Trump, we are already yoked by living here and partaking of all the blessings this governance brings and bearing personal responsibility for all the deviance this governance brings us.”

Bret offers,

Distinctions

It is true that we are yoked together regardless, BUT it is not necessarily a yoking of our making. When we vote for wicked men who hate Christ we are making the yoke of our making. We are yoking ourselves with unbelievers. The precise thing that God forbids here. We are lending our strength to continuing an already present yoking.

LT wrote,

“We are, after all, paying taxes to this government and by that very token, we are supporting it, like it or not.”

Bret offers,

I fail to see how being robbed at gunpoint to pay taxes means that I am supporting this wicked government who takes my money to kill babies, to support wicked governments overseas, to import people here who hate Christ etc. I fail to see how when someone robs me it means I have yoked myself to my muggers.

LT wrote,

“If this is your view, you need to move to another place on this planet where everything is governed according to the dictates of the Word of God.”

Bret offers,

No, that is not true. I need to do all I can to disciple the Nations to bring them under Christ’s authority (Matt. 28:16f). I am to engage here upon the work that Vos speaks of,

“The thought of the kingdom of God implies the subjection of the entire range of human life in all its forms and spheres to the ends of religion. The kingdom reminds us of the absoluteness, the pervasiveness, the unrestricted dominion, which of right belong to all true religion. It proclaims that religion, and religion alone can act as the supreme unifying, centralizing factor in the life of man, as that which binds all together and perfects all by leading it to its final goal in the service of God.”

Geerhardus Vos
Teaching of Jesus Concerning the Kingdom of God & the Church – p. 194

LT wrote,

“I find no Biblical mandate or example to do that (and couldn’t find another place if I had to). The people of God also “rendered to Caesar the things that were Caesar’s.” There were things that were “Caesar’s” ? And the people of God were commanded by Christ Himself to give these things to Caesar? Did we hear that right? Yes.”

Bret offers

The giving of what is due to magistrates (Romans 13:7) or the rendering unto Caesar the things that are Caesars must be measured by some standard that is beyond and above whatever the magistrate or the Caesar determines. Any Christian people who would allow a wicked Caesar or magistrate to determine on their own what is their due or what should be rendered to them would quickly become an enslaved people. Any glance of history will reveal that there are times when the magistrate has wanted taxes that were not his due. Any glance of history reveals that there have been times when the magistrate desired a fear and/or honor that were not his to command due to his disobedience to God. There are times when it is conceivable that dishonor, as the magistrate counts it, would be done out of honor to God.

Further, as a Christian to be obedient to God, I must render Caesar to God since Caesar belongs to God. Caesar owns nothing that God does not first own.

Secondly, Scripture does not compel me to render unto a wicked potential Caesar my vote.

LT wrote,

“So, there is no Biblical warrant for insisting that we are “yoked” together with a disobedient government. But personally, we are bound to support the government of the space that we occupy.”

Bret offers,

II Corinthians 6:14-7:1 is a text that clearly and unequivocally forbids Christians to vote for Christ-hating men. I already have quoted two sources (Meyers NT Commentary and Matthew Henry). Here is the Expositors Greek NT,

“2 Corinthians 6:14. Μὴ γίνεσθε ἑτεροζυγοῦντες κ.τ.λ.: be not (mark that the pres. tense γίνεσθε indicates the beginning of a state, sc., “do not become”) unequally yoked with unbelievers, the constr. being “be not unequally yoked, as you would be if you were yoked with unbelievers”.

The most obvious application of such a prohibition would be to intermarriage with the heathen, which was continually forbidden to the chosen people (see Deuteronomy 7:3, Joshua 23:12, Ezra 9:2, Nehemiah 13:25), and this is probably the main thought here (see ref. Lev. for ἑτερόζυγος); but to indulge in any excessive familiarity of intercourse would be “to be enlarged in heart” in a way which the Apostle strongly deprecates (cf. 1Ma 1:15). He enforces this by five contrasts which illustrate the incongruity between Christianity and heathendom.”

When you vote Trump you’re voting for a man who has said he will increase funding for Planned Parenthood. You are voting for a man who is actively courting the LGBTQ community thus indicating he will mainstream sodomy. You are voting for a man who has admitted whore-mongering. You will be unequally yoked.

LT offers,

In our country we are blessed to have the right to VOTE for our governance. As in our payment of taxes to a deviant government, we can’t always choose every thought, word, or deed of our governors, but we can choose a BODY of governors who espouse POLICIES that will best advance our faith, the faith “once for all delivered to the saints.”

Bret offers

Given that Democrats and Republicans are two heads of the same bird of prey I’d say your vote means very little. How many Republican Presidents have you voted for since 1973 in order to keep the dreaded Democrats out of office Lori? Has Abortion been overturned? Has Title IX and X been ended? Has Government been shrunk? Have the Republicans done anything to actually reverse the far left agenda?

Honestly, in our current political context, to talk about the advancement of our faith via Political policies that have been pursued because of our vote doesn’t seem to connect to reality.

The option now is to realize that both Republicans and Democrats use the Christian vote to advance paganism and as we vote for them we are being yoked to the advance of the anti-Christ agenda.

LT wrote,

We have plenty of evidence this past eight years, and especially this last year, that our current BODY of governance, particularly the EXECUTIVE BRANCH, will stop at almost nothing to jeopardize our religious freedom which will undermine our efforts to use our churches, build our Christian schools, practice Godly morals and on and on and on.

Bret offers,

You mean as opposed to the lying that “W” did to put us in a War where our sons and daughters have been killed? Where the Christian community that did exist in Iraq was snuffed out because of US policy? Where the deficit was larger than ever until Obama? Where the Government grew by leaps and bounds? Where the Patriot Act was passed that ensured Statist Tyranny? The wreckage that Republican “W” left behind him competes with the wreckage that Obama has wrought.

Sure, Obama is a Demon from the pit but maybe Christians deserve him because they keep voting for wicked Republicans?

LT offers,

A vote for Hillary Clinton, or even a vote for a third party candidate that cannot win, or a write-in vote that cannot win, will place us in the position of an irreversible downslide in this country. It will put our future generations in the cradle of corruption.

Bret offers,

Your solution has been pursued for several generations now and the result has been the corrosion of the Christian faith in the public square. That erosion can be seen by otherwise fine Christian people not being able to see that Scripture explicitly forbids them to be unequally yoked to a wicked man like Trump.

And in my estimation, the irreversible downslide is already irreversible. It is certainly not going to be reversed by voting Republican.

LT wrote,

And, while God is certainly capable of reversing things in future generations, it does not seem to be His pattern to do so. So now I have broken my promise to myself not to remain in the discussion on this site. But since I am back in it, I do want to say that I have read all of the comments above, and I am stunned at the judgmental attitude of some to categorize a position like ours as Alt Right propelled by Satan, and in some cases consigned to hell itself for not “buying into a vote for a third party candidate or a write-in candidate, or staying at home and not voting.” This is offensive and untrue. Although we feel strongly about our position, we make absolutely no spiritual judgment about any fellow believers who feel differently. I am signing off now.

Bret offers,

First, I have no doubt of your Christianity. I simply believe that Christians who intend to vote for Trump are woefully deceived. There are times when I am deceived and people challenge me. This is what I am doing now.

Look, the Alt. Right is backing Trump big time. Obviously, not all who vote for Trump are Alternative Right. Shoot, if the Alt. Right would just own Christ, I’d be good with most of what they promote. But many many of their Representatives do not as this linked article demonstrates,

http://faithandheritage.com/2016/05/the-top-10-reasons-the-secular-alt-right-is-not-the-answer/

And, respectfully, I can not look at II Corinthians 6:14f and understand how Christians can yokethemselvese to an anti-Christ like Trump. I just can’t understand ignoring the clear implications of that passage.

And so I speak.