The Destructive Nature of Affirmative Action

The fault with affirmative action is,

1.) that by by trying to compensate a group for past injustices, affirmative action rewards people who have suffered no individual harm, and does so at the expense of those who have done no individual harm.

2.) that it proposes to achieve cultural color blindness by way of only seeing color. Recently, an Institution that I am associated with, has encouraged people to be colorblind and then turned around and resolved to gain racial-gender equality by hiring people because of their plumbing and pigment in order to reach a benchmark gender – racial goal.

3.) that it guarantees a lack of self respect and injury among those advanced via affirmative action so much so that no sense of accomplishment can ever be arrived at since the one advanced wrongly always knows he did not earn what he putatively achieved.

4.) that it punishes achievement and rewards mediocrity.

5.) that it guarantees tensions since those advanced, via affirmative action, will never be looked upon as being worthy of their positions since it is widely assumed that all those advanced via affirmative action are only where they are at because of their incidental attributes and not because of their abilities.

6.) that it continues racism and genderism due to how it subtly communicates that the beneficiaries of affirmative action are not qualified enough to achieve without being given advantages over people more qualified than them. This is commonly called “Tokenism.”

7.) that in destroying the natural nexus between ability, hard work, and achievement it disincentivizes hard work and creates a cynical citizenry pertaining to the professional class.

Thankful for the Explicitness of Rev. Dr. Pastor Lee — R2K Unleashed X

3. Do forget the OT, please. Seriously. You must understand that Romans 12 – 13 and the rest of the NT is a radical departure from OT Israel. Israel’s mandate was to make the land of Canaan (and other nations by extension) submit to its rule and reign. The NT Church is to submit to the reign of the nations. These two mandates are not only different, they are opposite. The prophets were calling the kings to account because it was in their portfolio, it was a theocracy, and the “King” was a type of Christ. NT prophets are preachers, and Caesar is not in their portfolio. Only sin in and among God’s people. This is why Paul says that God himself instituted the civil authority, they are God’s servants, and they answer directly to him, not to him through the church. Romans 13 is not a command. It is a description. They are doing this, now, apart from the Bible or the Church. God has given them sufficient knowledge of good and evil to fulfill their office since the fall.

Dr. Rev. Pastor Brian “Latin reader, no coward, Titles indifferent” Lee

1.) Here we find an explicit dispensationalizing of the OT and a hermeneutic of radical discontinuity. Now, R2K may apply their dispensationalism in different ways but the idea of counseling someone to “Do forget the OT, please. Seriously,” is a Dispensational impulse.

2.) This provides a window into why the Republication theory of the Mosaic Covenant is part and parcel of R2K. R2K needs to slough off any and all general equity talk that remains from the Mosaic covenant, as well as all concrete application of the OT Law to the Post-Resurrection public square. The R2K Republication theory of the Mosaic Covenant serves that purpose. We can make distinctions between R2K and the Mosaic Republication but we must keep before us that the innovative theology that is R2K can not be “successful” apart from their innovative reading of the Mosaic covenant as a Republication with it’s upper and lower registers and its “merit here” but not “merit there” “reasoning.” What the republication of the Mosaic covenant theory offers R2K is the ability to disregard the Mosaic covenant law in any of its concrete expressions, while still retaining the Mosaic law as somehow abstractly abstracted from the Mosaic covenant.

3.) The way that Romans 12 and 13 is read by Lee is yet another example of innovation. I would challenge the reader to read the way that Christopher Goodman read Romans 13 which was fairly typical of men like Knox and a share of the Puritans.

http://www.constitution.org/cmt/goodman/obeyed.htm

Harold Berman offers a good work that traces how the Reformation impacted the Law and Social Order of Nations. Berman traces out how the Reformation applied the insights of God’s Law as expressed in all of Scripture for the ordering of the civil realm.

http://www.amazon.com/Law-Revolution-Protestant-Reformations-Tradition/dp/0674022300/ref=pd_sim_b_6?ie=UTF8&refRID=0HJ54FNAXBDMQ1ZDWVVR

Lee is asserting that his innovative reading of Romans 12-13 should just be accepted upon his word but his assertion is just not accurate.

We need to keep in mind that it is incumbent to read all of the bible in context with all of the Bible. Just consider though how Lee and R2K does not do this. They excise the Mosaic covenant. They tell us to forget the Old Testament … Seriously. They dispensationalize the Scripture. Sure, if you read Romans 13 presupposing your own historically innovative and mistaken matrix naturally one is going to find Romans 12-13 convincingly proving that the Church’s only role is to submit to the anti-Christ State. Lee has need to heed Van Prinsterer’s warning of the need to avoid “serious conceptual confusion when it comes to Church and State and their mutual relation and the misuse that is being made … of the no less apostolic admonition, ‘Let every soul be subject to the higher powers,’ with the result that people run the risk of …. lapsing into a passiveness which is injurious alike to civil liberties and law and order and which in no wise resembles genuine Christian submission.”

All I can do is to beg the reader to look into these things and not accept the assertions of R2K-philes.

4.) Lee’s statement that in the OT the Nations were to ruled by Israel’s religion while in the NT the Israel of God is to b ruled by the pagan religion of the Nations is breathtaking.

“Israel’s mandate was to make the land of Canaan (and other nations by extension) submit to its rule and reign. The NT Church is to submit to the reign of the nations. These two mandates are not only different, they are opposite.”

Please keep in mind, dear reader, that the reign of a nation never happens in a vacuum. To be ruled by a Nation, by necessity, means to be ruled by the religion of said Nation since reigning, like law, has to be informed by some religion or worldview. When Lee tells us that the Church is to submit to the reign of the Nations, he is, by necessity, telling us that the Church is to be ruled by the religion that informs that reign. In my hearing that statement has the sound of treason about it.

Part of our difference here is eschatology but not even amillennialists of old never went so far as to suggest that the Israel of God is to be ruled by the pagan religion of the Nations.

“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.” (page 194)

Geerhardus Vos
The Teaching of Jesus Concerning the Kingdom of God and the Church

It is Lee’s militant amillennialism (another characteristic of R2K) that informs him. The Nations can not be ruled by the Church’s Christian faith (as opposed to being ruled by the Church) since such ruling can not happen until Christ’s returns. Indeed, for R2K, Christ ruling over concrete Nations in time and space is an impossibility. Hence their hatred for Christendom. You see, their eschatology can not allow it.

Even if you are amillennialist, dear reader, will you close ranks with Lee or Vos on this matter?

5.) Lee’s statement about the mandates being opposite brings us to another conclusion and that is that R2K and standard historical Reformed theology are also opposite. The extremity of the R2K position makes it another Reformed religion. The similarities between R2K and standard historical Reformed theology are only linguistic. R2K has poured new meaning into all the old words and phrases so that even though we may use the same words the meaning is entirely different. One simply cannot rummage around and change beginning principles (covenant, law, denial of general equity, etc.) of our undoubted catholic Christian faith and end up with the same faith.

6.) The fact that Caesar remains in our Portfolio is demonstrated by the fact that in a Constitutional Republic we Christians (Citizens of America and Heaven at the same time) are inclusive of those who are Caesar’s employer. Being Caesar’s employer means that we take of what we learn from our Catechism (LD 40), as it is taught in home and Church, and we apply it in the civil realm. No one denies that a distinction between the two realms exist but to bifurcate the two realms the way R2K does approaches being unfaithful.

As Exodus 18:21 says “But select capable men from all the people–men who fear God, trustworthy men who hate dishonest gain–and appoint them as officials over thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens.” America was set up in this republican form of government. Christians are to be involved in the selection of capable God fearing people to represent society. You will find that the Bible teaches that legitimate civil (not criminal) government is an ordinance of God, and tyrants have no claim upon conscientious submission of Christians in Romans 13.

Ridderbos, an amillennialist, explains how this non-bifurcation realm reality works where the Kingdom of God interacts and transforms the world,

“But the Kingdom of God also defines the Church in its relation to the world. The Church has a foundation of its own, has its own rules, its own mode of existence. But precisely because of the fact that it is the Church of the Kingdom, it has also a positive relation with the world, for the Kingdom of God is seeking acceptance in the world.

A sower went forth to sow. And the field is the world. That is why the Church is seeking catholicity. And this catholicity has a double aspect, one of extension and one of intensity, in accordance with the nature of the Kingdom. So the Church is as wide as the world. The horizons of the world are also the horizons of the Church; therefore its urge to carry on missionary work, to emigrate, to cross frontiers. This is because the Church is the
Church of the Kingdom. She is not allowed to be self-contained.

But there is also an intensive catholicity of the Church because of the Kingdom. The Church is related to life as a whole. It is not a drop of oil on troubled waters. It has a mission in this world and in the entire structure of the world. This statement does not arise from cultural optimism. This is the confession of the kingship of Christ. For this reason, too, the Church is the Church of the Kingdom.

And the third remark is my concluding one: as Church of the Kingdom, the Church is seeking the future. She has received her talents for the present. But her Lord who went into a far country will return. Her waiting for Him consists of working. Otherwise she will hear: What have you done with my talent?”

Herman Ridderbos,
“When the Time Had Fully Come: Studies in New Testament Theology”

Of course the militant amillennialists cannot agree with this quote because for the militant amillennialists the Church and the Kingdom are exactly co-extensive. They are one and the same.

7.) Nobody is advocating that the Civil Magistrate answer to the Church. It’s hard to believe that Lee would make that statement since it is widely known that the Reformed vision, as it came to America, was neither Church over State, nor State over Church. The Reformed vision had it, as it came to the America, that Church and State while distinct were interdependent spheres, each under sovereign God. The State’s end was unto providing Justice to God’s people as God defined Justice, and the Church’s role was to the end of ministering grace to God’s people by word and sacrament in the Christian Church. Each had their own place but neither was cut off and bifurcated from the other. The traditional election cycle sermon is one proof of that.

8.) Finally, the 20th century as the bloodiest century in human history wherein more people were killed by Governments than all other centuries combined completely mocks Lee’s statement, “God has given them (The State) sufficient knowledge of good and evil to fulfill their office since the fall.

This is part of the problem with much of the current ministerial corps. They seemingly have so little knowledge of History. Has Lee never heard of Lenin and Stalin and their murderous purges where tens of millions of people were tortured and killed? Has Lee never heard of Mao, Castro, Pol Pot, Hitler, and any number of other Tyrants who certainly did not have sufficient knowledge of good and evil to fulfill their office?

What Lee and R2K is doing with that kind of magnificently stupid statement is to absolutize the State as God walking on the earth and in doing so may be guilty of fostering idolatry in God’s people. No Institution … no person has absolute authority. All authority is dependent upon and must be in submission unto God’s revealed authority.

Look, in the end R2K is a different Reformed religion. The Understanding of God is different. The understanding of the Kingship of Christ is different. The eschatology is different. The ecclesiology is different. The Hermeneutic is different. The understanding of covenant is different. The understanding of the place and the role of the law is different. It is just a different religion.

Jesus Speech Pattern to Pharisees

I.) The Players

A.) Pharisees (37) — The Instructors

The Pharisees were the Talmud Traditionalists of their time. They were the ones who were uber concerned with their wrong notions of the law not being violated. Their problem wasn’t their zealousness. Their problem was that their zealousness was misdirected since they had twisted God’s law into the Talmud to suit their ends.

The word “Pharisee” may very well be derived from a term which means “to separate,” and so they viewed themselves as above the rank and file. They were the religious elitists of the day. You would not find them among the rank and file sinners of the day because they were do good for them.

Luke 15 “Then came unto him all the Publicans and sinners, to hear him. Therefore the Pharisees and Scribes murmured, saying, He receiveth sinners, and eateth with them.”

The origin of the Pharisees as a sect seems to have been in or around the second century B.C. They soon became detached and distant from the political regimes (the zealots, for example, would have brought about change through revolution). The Pharisees sought to produce spiritual holiness and spiritual reformation. They recognized that Israel’s condition was the result of sin, specifically a disobedience to the Law. It was their intention to identify, communicate, and facilitate obedience to their twisted version of God’s law, thus producing holiness and paving the way for the kingdom of God to be established on the earth. The problem was that they had, over centuries, inserted man’s law in place of God’s law so that they were more concerned with formalities than they were with righteousness. This disagreement over the law (Talmud vs. Torah) was the reason why Jesus clashed with them over and over again.

Pharisees believed in the inspiration and authority of the Scripture as they had twisted it to fit their traditions. They believed in the supernatural, in Satan, angels, heaven (the earthly kingdom of God at least) and hell, and the resurrection of the dead. Their error was in the fact that they were twisting God’s law and that they were using the law unlawfully as a means to curry God’s favor.

If God’s Law was the Constitution the Pharisees were the Supreme Court and much like our own Supreme Court for over a Century now has been twisting the original meaning and intent of our Constitution the Pharisees were twisting God’s Law in favor of their own fever demented imaginations.

And so instead of being the first to recognize the Lord Christ as God’s Incarnate Law-Word, they were the first to reject Him. Rather than turning the nation to the Lord Christ, they sought to turn the nation against Him.

We should note here that a person is not a Pharisee all because they are convinced they are right. A person is not a Pharisee all because they have a standard which they seek to uphold. A person is a Pharisee when they depart the revealed God of Scripture and His Law-word in favor of a god made in their own likeness with their own autonomous own law word, all the while insisting that they are representing God.

B.) Lawyers (Experts in the law) — Instructors of the Instructors

The Lawyers were a subset of the Pharisees. They were the cream filled center to the Pharisaical Oreo Cookie. They were those who were the informed hub around which all the Pharisees found their orbit. They were the Jedi Masters and were teachers of the Pharisees.

And so the audience of our Lord Christ were the cream crop of learned men. These men were the gatekeepers of the Hebrew culture. In our culture today they were the Hollywood moguls. They were the High level politicians and judges. They were the movers and shakers of our publishing houses. They were the nationally known televised Journalists and their producers. They are the Nationally renown clergy at our Mega Churches

And the truth be told they are too often you and I.

So this is the audience of our Lord Christ and he intends to pick a fight but only because these folks have been picking a fight with God for centuries.

C.) What do we learn here?

We learn that there is a people and a time and a place for direct words.

And who are the people for whom the direct words are reserved? Well, if Scripture is any indication it is the people who twist God’s Word. It is the people who alter the meaning of God’s word AND who think they are doing God a favor by doing so.

Quoting Rev. Doug Wilson here from his book “The Serrated Edge,”

“We are to be kind to one another. Sheep are to be kind to sheep. Shepherds are to be kind to sheep. But if a shepherd is kind to wolves, that is just another way to let them savage the sheep (60).”

If a Pastor sees wolves savaging Christ’s sheep the Pastor has a role to resist the wolf. If the Pastor doesn’t, The pastor is unfaithful. Unfaithful to the sheep. Unfaithful to the wolf. And unfaithful to the Sheep and Wolf owner.

Now, quoting Wilson again,

“…we must be careful not to be hasty in imitating [Jesus], since His wisdom is perfect and ours is not. It is therefore good to take counsel with others. Related to this, sharp rebukes and the ridiculing of evil practices should seldom be the first approach one should make, but usually should follow only after the rejection of a soft word of reproach, or when dealing with hard-hearted obstinacy displayed over an extended period of time.”

When all of this is taken together it is incredibly difficult to discern. Is now the right time to say something? Should I bide my time and wait? Would there be a better time in the future?

And keep in mind in all this that if there is a sin of being too harsh and jagged in speech there is also the sin of being to soft and effeminate. If we can sin by saying too much we can sin by saying to little.

And now remember that God’s enemies always love it when we say too little and are too soft and effeminate.

II.) The Issue (vs. 37) — The Law

Occasioned by Washing = Ceremonial Washing

The washing here was not for hygienic reasons but for ceremonial purity. It was thought that the hands could accidentally come in contact with all sorts of things that were ritually unclean and so punctilious Jews would wash their hands potentially defiled hands so as not to contaminate their food. This is an example where their oral law was going beyond Scripture. One of the treatises in one of their books chronicling the oral law covers details of hand washing, such as how much water is to be used and how many rinsings are necessary and other arcane details.

This issue comes up in a different place,

Matthew 15:1 Then [a]came to Jesus the Scribes and Pharisees, which were of Jerusalem, saying,
2 Why do thy disciples transgress the tradition of the Elders? for they [b]wash not their hands when they eat bread. 3 [c]But he answered and said unto them, Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition?

In both of these places we see that the Lord Christ takes the opportunity to lay into his opponents over the issue of how they are handling the Law. In both texts the sin is the fact that they are being so punctilious about comparative minutia while ignoring the substantive and explicit word of God.

In Matthew they are ignoring God’s law as to their responsibility to parents to the end that they can do what they want with their money. Here in Luke they are ignoring God’s Law that requires justice and the Love of God in favor of ceremonial and ritual washing.

Make no mistake though … the problem that the Lord Christ goes full throttle on is the seeing how the Pharisees are manipulating the Law so that they come out looking good.

The problem is not the Law. Indeed, in the Matthew passage Jesus even says that they should have obeyed the comparative smaller portions of the Law but without violating the comparatively more significant part of the law. His problem is not with people who honor God’s law. His problem is with people who say they honor God’s law all the while dishonoring it.

The Lord Christ was opposed to Lawlessness in the name of lawfulness.

We should note here that since Law is a inescapable category it is always the case that lawlessness comes in the name of some kind of lawfulness. When we set aside the law of God we will always take up the law of man. So, consequently antinomianism is really impossible, for whenever we are against God’s law we will always be in favor of some other law, even if it is the law that teaches it is impermissible to say that anything is not impermissible.

Pharisees and Teachers of the Law come in all shapes and sizes. And we probably do best on this subject when we start with ourselves. Who of us have a complete understanding of God’s Law? Who of us doesn’t twist God’s law to our end and purposes. Behold, Pharisee and Hypocrite is a title we do all well wear to one degree or another.

Having said that we must recognize that whole cottage industries have been spun in the Modern church by denying God’s law in one way or another.

There are those who deny God’s Law because they say Jesus ended the Law with His death
There are those who deny God’s Law because they say it was “culturally conditioned.”
There are those who deny God’s Law because they say that most of it should be seen as an Intrusion Ethic
There are those who deny God’s Law applies to Christians as they engage in the Public square

This is the age in which we live and one wonders, given how out of sorts the Lord Christ was over the Pharisaic twisting in the 1st century how out of sorts He is now with the Modern Church.

III.) The Communication Methodology

A.) Audience

Before we can choose a methodology of communication we have to know our audience. Jesus did not always speak the rough way he speaks here to all people, though this is not the only time he speaks this jaggedly with people. As one reads the NT we readily see that Jesus spoke to different people in different ways.

Few examples,

Luke 7:37 And behold, a woman in the city, which was a sinner, when she knew that Jesus sat at table in the Pharisee’s house, she brought a box of ointment. And she stood at his feet behind him weeping, and began to wash his feet with tears, and did wipe them with the hairs of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment…. 48 And he said unto her, Thy sins are forgiven thee.

Luke 8 (Woman with a blood issue) And he said unto her, “Daughter, be of good comfort: thy faith hath saved thee: go in peace.”

Mark 7 – Syro-Phoenician woman — Request to cast devil out demon from daughter

27 But Jesus said unto her, Let the children first be fed: for it is not good to take the children’s bread, and to cast it unto the dogs.

So, what we note here is that the Lord Christ gauged his communication with people according to the audience he was encountering. And because that is so, we must at the very least pray that we will have the wisdom to likewise know how to assess our audience and so how to communicate.

There are other considerations as well. There is the matter of the setting or context in which we find ourselves. You might not say something to someone at a formal dinner that you would say to them at a ball game. You might not say one thing to a Judge in his courtroom that you would say to him out of his courtroom. You might not say one thing to someone in the context of a funeral that you might say to them in the context of a wedding.

What we want to note here though is that direct language in a public setting is not always the wrong play as Jesus demonstrates here.

B.) Motive

Love for the listener. Love for the eaves-droppers (those listening in). Most importantly … Love for God.

There will be those who read this passage and conclude that Jesus is mean here. I do not conclude that. The Lord Christ is giving to these men exactly what they need to hear even if recoil over what is said to them. The Lord Christ is demonstrating the Love of the Father to these men.

C.) Protestation (vs. 45)

“Teacher, when you say these things you insult us also.”

I’ve always been amazed by this passage. There is an implicit plea here to go easy. Be nice. Don’t include us in your harsh judgmental “woes.”

But instead of slowing down in the face of this plea, the Lord Christ, accelerates. It is as if the only purpose of this plea, in the text, is to serve as a speed bump that does not work.

What can we say? Only that He knew what they needed to hear and how they needed to hear it.

IV.) The Consequence (vs. 53)

Conclusion

Having said all this we can not forget the other side of the equation

Scripture presents “lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love” Eph. 4:2, as the normative state of affairs in the body of Christ. Scripture does take account of other people’s feelings. Consider Paul in these passages.

Just as a nursing mother cares for her children, 8 so we cared for you. Because we loved you so much, we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well… But, brothers and sisters, when we were orphaned by being separated from you for a short time (in person, not in thought), out of our intense longing we made every effort to see you. 1 Thess. 2:7-8, 17

II Cor. 1 So I made up my mind that I would not make another painful visit to you. 2 For if I grieve you, who is left to make me glad but you whom I have grieved? 3 I wrote as I did, so that when I came I would not be distressed by those who should have made me rejoice. I had confidence in all of you, that you would all share my joy. 4 For I wrote you out of great distress and anguish of heart and with many tears, not to grieve you but to let you know the depth of my love for you.

And yet this same Paul could write that he wished the enemies of the Gospel would go all the way and castrate themselves. And then turn around and say,

Brethren, if a man is overtaken in any trespass, you who are spiritual should restore such a one, in a spirit of gentleness, considering yourself lest you also be tempted.

And so, we are often left in these matters begging in prayer for the Wisdom to know how to engage. To know what the proper word is and the proper way it should be said.

God grant us forgiveness when we fail and the grace to ask for forgiveness.

Examining “Rev.” Dr. Pastor Lee’s Non Latin Theology … R2K Unleashed (IX)

Continuing to examine “Rev.” Dr. Pastor (ad infinitum) Lee’s mid-term Election piece located here,

http://www.patheos.com/Topics/Politics-in-the-Pulpit/The-Church-Should-Not-Weigh-In-On-Ballot-Issues-Brian-Lee-110314.html

“Rev.” Dr. Pastor (titles ad infinitum) Lee (but who doesn’t give a hill of beans for titles and who is not a coward) wrote,

How then shall we best love our neighbors outside the church? How shall we preserve and protect those lives that are not directly subject to the moral government of the church?

We have no comparable clarity here. Shall we enact laws against abortion? Christians may, in our wisdom, decide it is best to do so. But neither the Church nor her preachers can say unambiguously that such laws must be enacted. She lacks the authority, and the wisdom, to do so. Perhaps such a law will backfire; perhaps it will lead to more abortions, to more deadly abortions. Perhaps it is politically unwise, though being morally just. If she bases her actions on what God’s word teaches, the church must remain agnostic on such questions.

Therefore, the church should be mindful of its members’ dual citizenship, and differing degrees of clarity on how God’s law shall be applied in different aspects of their lives. God’s law is not multifaceted. It is one and simple and true. But our grasp of it, and our application of it to our neighbors in particular times and places, is finite and variable.

Yet while the church is bound and limited in what she may teach, the individual Christian is free. She may engage in politics, may lobby for pro-life causes, may hold civil office. But the church may not compel her to do so.

1.) The implication that the Institutional Church and her Ministers is directly subjecting pagans to the moral government of the Church when it speaks against matters like abortion is a red herring. When the Institutional Church and her Ministers speak consistent with the Heidelberg Catechism seeking to “protect our neighbor from harm as much as we can” it is hardly subjecting them to the moral government of the Church, unless you consider keeping them from harm a matter of direct moral governance.

2.) “Latin Lee” insists that we have no comparable clarity here but Heidelberg Catechism q. 107 says otherwise. Whose words shall we take on the matter?

3.) Dr. Rev. Pastor Lee then launches off into the law of possible unintended consequences. If we followed Lee’s logic on this none of us would get out of bed in the morning. Perhaps such a law will lead to nuclear holocaust.” “Perhaps such a law will lead to more than 1.3 million abortions every year.” This is such a reach one seriously wonders if the good minister is receiving a commission from Planned Parenthood? Lee’s fretting changes the question from “Shall we do evil that good may abound,” to an imperative, “We shall not do good because evil might abound.” Doctor Rev. Pastor Lee, we are responsible to be obedient. God is responsible for the consequences.

4.) “To more deadly abortions?”

More deadly abortions?

More deadly abortions?

God forbid that we would want to go from dead abortions to even more deadly abortions.

5.) “Perhaps it is politically unwise, though being morally just.”

Only a former bureaucrat could possibly think like that. Doctor Rev. Pastor Lee, we are responsible to be obedient. God is responsible for the consequences.

6.) Keep in mind that you, Dear Reader, read above, a Minister of the Institutional Church of Jesus Christ say, “the church must remain agnostic on such questions” of whether or not Ministers should verbally, from the Pulpit, support laws ending abortion.

What reasons are given?

a.) such laws might backfire
b.) such laws might lead to more deadly abortions
c.) such laws might be politically unwise

And despite the requirement in question 107 of the Heidelberg Catechism to “protect our neighbor from harm as much as we can” we are told that the Institutional Church and Her ministers must not speak on this kind of matter.

Such council is to boggle the mind.

7.) But Dr. Rev. Pastor Lee is not done. His next statement almost seems to channel Joseph Fletcher — he of “situational ethics” fame. Lee warns us about the, “differing degrees of clarity on how God’s law shall be applied in different aspects of their lives. God’s law is not multifaceted. It is one and simple and true. But our grasp of it, and our application of it to our neighbors in particular times and places, is finite and variable.

If this is not situational ethics it then sure sounds like cultural relativism. God’s law is not multifaceted, and is simple and true but we can’t get to it because we are finite and variable. Paging Dr. Immanuel Kant, there is a severe case of the noumenal realm in room 17.

And here we end our analysis. If this is what Christianity has become, I have no interest in being a Christian.

Examining “Rev.” Dr. Pastor Lee’s Non Latin Theology … R2K Unleashed (VIII)

Continuing to examine “Rev.” Dr. Pastor (ad infinitum) Lee’s mid-term Election piece located here,

http://www.patheos.com/Topics/Politics-in-the-Pulpit/The-Church-Should-Not-Weigh-In-On-Ballot-Issues-Brian-Lee-110314.html

“Rev.” Dr. Pastor (ad infinitum) Lee (but who doesn’t give a hill of beans for titles and who is not a coward) wrote,

This is a controversial, but crucial, distinction. Let’s apply it to the contested area of abortion.

God’s law clearly proscribes the taking of life. His word clearly teaches that unborn life is precious and to be protected. This has been a hallmark of Christian social ethics since the early church. Therefore, as a preacher I can unambiguously proclaim from the pulpit that a Christian who aborts their child is committing a heinous sin. God commands his people to preserve and protect life.

But the command to not take a life is not a command to pass a law not to take a life. Nor is it a command to politically agitate or lobby for such a law. Such political activity could be understood to run counter to Paul’s command to church to “live quietly and mind your own affairs” (1 Thessalonians 4:11).

1.) Here is one example of German Christians from the 1930’s following Lee’s advice to not politically agitate and to live quietly and mind your own affairs,

“A railroad track ran behind our small church, and each Sunday morning we would hear the whistle from the distance and then the clacking of the wheels moving over the track. We became disturbed when one Sunday we noticed cries coming from the train as it passed by. We grimly realized that the train was carrying innocent prisoners. They were like cattle in those cars!”

“Week after week that train whistle would blow. We would dread to hear the sound of those old wheels because we knew that the innocent prisoners would begin to cry to us as they passed our church. It was so terribly disturbing! We could do nothing to help these poor miserable people, yet their screams tormented us. We knew exactly at what time that whistle would blow, and we decided the only way to keep from being so disturbed by the cries was to start singing our hymns. By the time the train came rumbling past the church yard, we were singing at the top of our voices. If some of the screams reached our ears, we’d just sing a little louder until we could hear them no more.”

2.) Allow me to contend that when Christians speak up for the judicially innocent and the “least of these” they are minding their own affairs and are therefore not crosswise with I Thessalonians 4:11. Besides, is Lee really minding his own affairs and living quietly when he disrupts the Church with his alien theology? Physician heal thyself.

3.) Lee says above that a “Christian who aborts their child is committing a heinous sin.” Because of the way that Lee uses language in a slippery way one wonders if this means that Lee does not think that the non Christian who aborts their children are committing a heinous sin?

4.) Understand that Lee has explicitly said there that for a Christian, to politically agitate or lobby for a law is counter to Scripture’s command. Think about it. If it is counter to Scripture’s command for a Minister to politically agitate or lobby for a law from the Pulpit because it violates the idea of leading a quiet life then why would it be acceptable for any Christian in any context to politically agitate or lobby for a law for the same reason? Are only the ministers to live a quite life and mind their own affairs?

All of the Latin reading and German Published Minister’s “reasoning” is hash.