On Mocking & Compassion

Recently, someone inquired of me how my pastoral heart is evidenced by the satire and sarcasm in which I sometimes engage. This is a understandable and fair question which goes to the issue of compassion. We might summarize the issue by asking; Is it a lack of compassion to mock God’s enemies?

First, we would have to determine what kind of ‘enemies’ with which we are dealing. Certainly you deal differently with different kinds of people. It would hardly be wise to mock somebody who is tentatively embracing a un-biblical idea or behavior and is still willing to consider counter arguments to their position. However somebody who is epistemologically self conscious in their hatred of God and is leading others into sin might be a perfect candidate for a kind of mockery that reveals the compassion of a pastor’s heart.

To suggest a concrete example we would probably deal differently with a Freshmen college student who is beginning to embrace the legitimacy of homosexuality as just another social relationship then we would her college professor who is self-consciously teaching her in such a way that hides all the counter arguments from her. If we entered into conversation with the Freshmen student we would probably try to engage her argument by offering counter arguments and by exposing where she has been led astray. We would tend to exhibit more patience as we sought to help her sort out her ill informed thinking. If we entered into conversation with the College professor who is responsible for the Freshman’s confusion and who is pursuing an agenda and who is an epistemologically self-conscious God hater mockery might be the perfect vehicle of compassion.

When we consider the issue of compassion and mockery we must keep in mind that compassion is seldom a zero sum game. That is to say that often it is the case that when we show compassion to one party we are thereby showing callousness towards another party. Let me try and explain.

Let’s take the women in office issue that I have written a few posts on lately. Clearly I have been callous towards those who hold to and advocate such a position, but those who have noticed the callousness are required to examine what purpose the callousness is serving. Is my callousness towards the feelings of those who are advocating egalitarianism and feminism born of just a callow meanness on my part or is it possible that it is really compassion that drives my mockery?

If we continue to consider the feelings of those who are advocating high handed sin do we at the same moment do violence to the feelings of those who are being shattered by their perverted advocacy? We must keep in mind that when we treat the ideas that God haters advance with tact and compassion that we might, by that posture, be communicating that their ideas are worthy of respect, thus investing a certain validity to their ideas. If ideas that contain high rebellion against God’s word are discussed in a “civilized” compassionate and respectful tone does that not suggest a lack of urgency regarding the ideas being discussed?

For example, how sane would most people find it to observe two people in polite debate over the idea that not enough Armenian Christians were killed by Muslim Turks in the great Armenian holocaust at the turn of the 20th century? Naturally, such civility appalls us. There are some ideas that by their very nature should not be treated civilly and should be met with the most scornful mockery possible.

Now, thus far, we have only considered the issue of compassion and mockery on the horizontal level of man to man. What of God? When we fail to mock those who are self consciously mocking God are we joining in their mockery? Should our compassion for those who resist God be greater than our compassion for God? Does our compassion for God’s enemies reveal a callousness towards God on our part? Does not Elijah’s mockery of God’s enemies on Mt. Carmel suggest a compassion on Elijah’s part towards God and towards God’s people.

Compassion thus cannot be considered in a vacuum. Compassion towards a murderer is callousness towards the victim’s family. Compassion for one who is effectively advocating homosexuality as just another life-style is callousness towards those who are being charmed by that argument. Compassion towards egalitarians and feminists who are quite self conscious about what they are attempting is callousness towards every daughter and every wife who will be hardened and hurt by the culture that the advocates are seeking to build. Just as it is callousness towards every son and every father who will be emasculated and emptied by that same culture. The loathing that is revealed by any mockery reveals a corresponding compassion and love for the opposite of that which is being mocked and lampooned. A pastor’s heart can express compassion in both positive and negative movements.

All of this to say that I offer no apologies for my mockery and putative callousness. I am glad though for people who correspond with me and warn me about ‘the lack of my pastoral heart.’ I am glad for them because it gives me a chance to communicate that there are times when mockery is the very essence of compassion. Speaking only for myself, if I could not mock the enemy all of my time would be drenched in tears. Crying gets boring after awhile.

I have daughters in my family and young ladies in the congregation I serve who I love deeply as a Father and a Pastor. My pastoral heart towards them would be made of iron fibers if I did not show them compassion by mocking the egalitarians and the feminists.

Dedicated To William J. Webb — Slaves, Women, & Homosexuals

Sung to the tune of Cher’s Gypsies, Tramps, & Thieves

I was born at the font with the covenant sign
My tutor used to say, “What is Christ’s is now mine”
Pastor would preach whatever is true
Now our tomboy preacher, sings to us of the patriarchy blues

Chorus

Women, Gays, and slaves
We hear it from clergy who say we’re bound
To exalt women, gays and slaves
At every turn all their numbers come around
and shout the faithful down

Somewhere the lefties grabbed hold of the wheel
Took over the schools, taught the faithful to heel
Seized all the pulpits, and at synod they won
Learned their love at Woodstock
The Church is now being run by the prodigal son

Chorus

She was open to foolin, and they fooled her well
With their smooth 60’s spin
50 years later she’ a gal in trouble
And she’s about to give birth to her sin
She’s about to give birth to her sin

We’re now held captive to an egalitarian show
Skirts in the pulpits where-ever you go
Dark ages fall, turn out the light
Trajectory hermeneutic, wrong is now right

Pesky Limitations

“… limiting the designation of marriage to a union ‘between a man and a woman’ is unconstitutional and must be stricken from the statute,”

California Chief Justice Ron George
Written Opinion Allowing Inverted Unlawful Carnal Marriage

In other California Supreme Court cases the Court was also quoted while striking from statute,

1.) “that limiting the designation of water to a union between two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen is unconstitutional and must be stricken from the statute.”

2.) “that limiting the designation of boy as one who has a penis is unconstitutional and must be stricken from the statute.”

3.) “that limiting the designation of a solar day to 24 hours is unconstitutional and must be stricken from the statute.”

4.)”that limiting the designation of island as a body of land surrounded by water is unconstitutional and must be stricken from the statute.”

And finally,

5.) “that limiting the designation of Justices as those having a tinker’s damn worth of intelligence is unconstitutional and must be stricken from statute.”

The Ardsnarkians … A ongoing Saga

The Ardsnarkian community, after years of debate, finally decided that instead of each family providing their own meals they would create ‘eat centers,’ where Ardsnarks, young and old, would go for their meals. This was a large step for a people who traditionally had been very independent in all their habits. They concluded however that ‘eat centers’ would save time and effort. The money to support these ‘eat centers’ would be provided by each family unit ‘donating’ what it would usually cost them to feed their own family, plus enough to pay the wages of those who would be dedicated to feeding all the Ardsnarks.

The Ardsnarks, being a people with a good deal of foresight, realized that they would need to set up ‘Eaters Colleges’ in order to train the future cooks, nutritionists and dietitians for the Ardsnark Eat Centers. The first President of the first ‘Eater College’ was a mann named Dewey Rugg-Ardsnark, and in his acceptance speech Dewey promised that the ‘Eater College,’ would ‘forever be a place where the most cutting edge dietary methods and techniques would be taught in order to keep average Ardsnarks in their place of health.’

At first this arrangement worked splendidly. What with the time free from meal preparation and clean up the Ardsnark women now had more freedom then ever and eventually many of them decided they could work a little in order to expand the family budget. Further, the arrangement worked well because the Ardsnarks were a community where meat and potatoes was the standard meal, therefore there was little murmuring by the meat and potato meal that was routinely offered.

Incrementally and imperceptibly, though, over the course of generations something to begin to happen to the Ardsnark community. Suddenly, the Eatists (thats what they called the Eat Center professional) started bullying the rest of their Ardsnarkian brethren. It started first by the ‘Eatists,’ in their brown shirt uniforms (better to hide the food stains they said) insisting that in order to do their jobs as Eastists properly they really needed to have full control over the food supply and manufacturing. They just couldn’t do their jobs adequately if they had to depend on Ardsnarkian farmers since the farmers didn’t ‘know how to farm in such a way to give the Eatists the optimum quality food.

Once the Brown Shirt Eatists took control of the food supply and manufacturing as well as the cooking some Ardsnarks, who still were retrograde enough do to their own home farming and cooking, began to notice that both that the Eatists seemed to be getting bigger and stronger while the rest of the Ardsnark community began looking kind of puny and reasoning as if their brains were suffering malnutrition.

Now these retrograde Ardsnarks began to try to bring this to the communities attention starting a campaign to warn of the ill effects of public eateries but the community, both the Eatists and the mainstream Ardsnarks, accused them of being conspiratorialists. The mainstream Ardsnarks, who were, on average, 25 pounds leaner, 5 inches shorter, and 15 points down on the non-adjusted Ardsnark I.Q. test, then their great great grandparents, insisted that “since they came out of the eat centers alright, their children would as well.” The Eatists who the retrodgrade Ardsnarks were now calling ‘Elitists Eatists’ insisted that the retrogrades were “trying to destroy the Ardsnarkian way of life,” which was absolutely true.

Over the course of time this division between the retro Ardsnarks (R.A.) and the Eatists Ardsnarks (E.A.) developed into an Ardsnarkian culture war, as the RA’s did all they could do withdraw from the orbit of EA influence while the EA’s kept trying to put all Ardsnarkia under their hegemonic control. Indeed, so vast did the difference become between these two warring Ardsnarkian elements that some of the Retro’s began bombing and blowing up the Eat centers and the Eaters Colleges with the more benign Retro’s writing heavy tomes quoting the early Ardsnarkian fathers who warned against the dangers of the Eatists and who prophetically and accurately, as it turned out, projected where these Eat Centers would lead. The EA’s on the other hand insisted that the orderly farming, production, and preparation of food required them to take over all Constabulary duties in the Ardsnarkian culture in order to better insure the free flow of food to all of Ardsnarkia, and so a nationalized ‘Food Police’ was created, (Black Shirted Uniforms in order to hide the non food stains) devoted to protecting the Ardsnarkian way of life.

The EA’s didn’t stop there. They insisted that prevention was to be preferred to law enforcement so they developed a Ministry of Information for Ardsnarkia dedicated to the purpose of canvassing and reaching the Ardsnarkia hinterland with the Gospel of Eat Centers. The motto of this new agency was “Nutrition or Death,” which fit nicely on a snazzy patch they had on their camouflage uniforms.

Dear Pastor — Is Theonomy Like Circumcision?

The coming of Christ, the true Son of God, abolishes national Israel. Since the coming of Christ, there is no more reason for the theocracy. Whether they mean to or not, theonomists are an affront to Christ. They want to have the theocracy that Christ abolished by his coming. He fulfilled the purposes of Israel. To claim those purposes for ourselves is to reject Christ himself.

Read Gal 5:1-5 and replace “circumcision” with “theonomy”.

First, the coming of Christ does indeed abolish national Israel. That is why we don’t see any relevance of that piece of sod in the Middle East for eschatology. However, saying that the coming of Christ abolishes national Israel and saying that the coming of Christ abolishes the law are two quite different statements. The case law that Theonomy appeals to is naught but the moral law applied to concrete situations. If one insists that the case law is abolished one is left saying that the moral law only continues to inform in a completely abstract fashion, or one is left to inconsistently saying that while the moral law applies concretely to individuals it doesn’t apply concretely to the public square where it was specifically given and never rescinded to apply to.

Second, as Theocracy is an inescapable category, the coming of Christ has nothing to do with its elimination. All governmental arrangements are theocratic since all law orders that provide the framework for all social orders are derivative of some expressed or implied Theology. Saying that theocracy is eliminated by the coming of Christ is like insisting that oxygen has been eliminated by the coming of Christ. You can say it all you want but it doesn’t make it so.

Third, we would say that it is not theonomists who are an affront to Christ but rather those who would deny the proper place of His Kingship. They argue against God’s concrete law and they turn around and plead for a Kingship of Jesus that is abstract and debatable. (Debatable because Jesus’ Kingship as expressed by their natural law theories is a Kingship that looks different according to which natural law theorists you speak with.)

You letter however, does reveal the anti-thesis between Christians who are theonomists and Christians who desire to read them out of the Kingdom. It is difficult to see how, if each insists that the other is an affront to Christ how they can co-exist together.

Fourth, theonomist, most assuredly do not desire the Israelite Theocracy that Christ abolished. They want the Theocracy that comes from bearing allegiance to Christ in this age and in this place. Silly boy, why would we ever build fences around our roofs as the Israelite Theocracy was required to? No, the Israelite Theocracy is abolished, but the law of God lives on since it is, after all, Holy, just and good.

Fifth the purpose of Israel is not abolished. The overarching purpose of Israel was to testify and be witnesses to God’s hegemonic glory. That remains the overarching purpose of the Church today. Certainly you are not saying that this purpose is abolished are you? That would be true Reformed Dispensationalism if you were. One way the overarching purpose continues to be pursued is by properly esteeming God’s law (we still meditate on it both day and night), which means that we do not seek to use it as a ladder to climb into the presence of God but rather out of gratitude we seek to conform ourselves in every area of life to God’s law revelation.

Sixth, thus it is quite clear that theonomists do not reject Christ himself, though once again we see the anti-thesis here between Classical Reformed Theology and more recent Reformed innovations. We see it because it is the conviction of many a theonomist that it is the Reformed innovations that are rejecting Christ himself. So, each side continues to hurl invective at one another.

1 Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free,[a] and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage. 2 Indeed I, Paul, say to you that if you become a theonomist, Christ will profit you nothing. 3 And I testify again to every man who becomes a theonomist that he is a debtor to keep the whole law. 4 You have become estranged from Christ, you who attempt to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace. 5 For we through the Spirit eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness by faith.

First, while it might have been convenient for your argument if the Holy Spirit had inspired the writer to write ‘theonomy’ instead of ‘circumcision’ such is not the case and the suggestion of replacing one word for the other is completely gratuitous and may border on faulting the Holy Spirit for not using the word that you would prefer.

Second, while Scripture makes it abundantly clear that the ceremonial law has been fulfilled (not abolished) and so no longer in force it does not make the same case for the moral law which the civil law is but the concrete embodiment of.

Third, your position consistently embraced would (and some would say does) result in public square anti-nomianism.

Fourth, you come perilously close to bearing false witness about Theonomists since no theonomist has ever come close to teaching that we are justified by the law as the Judaizers taught that the Galatians would be justified by circumcision. Do you have no conscience against bearing false witness or do you not have to be concerned about that since your comments are in the public square and the law does not apply to the public square? Once again, I would recommend Samuel Bolton’s book to you that teaches a very standard Reformed and Puritan view of the Law.

I hope this helps you think your way through these matters more precisely,

Pastor Bret