Keeping the Porch Light on in a Dark World
Sometimes, ministers of the Gospel are the biggest problem.
“Abortion and Planned Parenthood will never end until pastors realize God will hold us accountable for our intensely defended indifference to the innocents being slaughtered down the street from our church-houses. It’s no wonder simple Christians living under the authority of such pastors are silent about Planned Parenthood’s murder of little babies. Add the R2K ridiculosity and the witches brew is vintaged finely.”
[Note–please be sure to read this article from The Federalist!]
I linked this post to a Facebook group that is for Christian Church/church of Christ ministers only. It was deleted within an hour. Ironically, this is a post about the denial of free expression and sharing it is also denied.
This is because there are, within conservative, evangelical Christianity, at least two camps of opinion about how cultural matters ought to be decided. At this time, in North America, by far the largest is the camp that believes the Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-20) is about saving souls, and making good ethical disciples, who express their Christianity as much as they can in their businesses, places of work, schools, neighbourhoods, etc. These, however, are heavily influenced by the Adventism of the mid-nineteenth century, which taught that the end of the world was immanent, and the focus should be on individual salvation while the rest of the world, its governments, institutions, its culture is abandoned to Satan. Those who hold to this view make up the vast majority of Christians today, and it is the “received view” of most megachurches.
These are the ones who will not sympathize much with business people who, out of a commitment to Christ, refuse to celebrate same-sex marriages. They would argue that their work is secular, and that they must therefore submit to the laws of the land (Romans 13:1ff). This view is often inconsistent, as it generally accepts the sacred/secular distinction as it applies to Christians in the marketplace, but protests loudly (and rightly) at the abortion holocaust.
The other camp believes that the Dominion Mandate (a.k.a. the “Cultural Mandate.” There are some great resources here) of Genesis 1:28 has not been rescinded, and that the glory of the Lord is literally to spread “throughout the earth” (Habakkuk 2:14). The belief here is that God has sovereign rights over all His Creation, and those rights are not diminished by human reason or law. This view holds that the moral law is demanded of all humans everywhere, and that civil law ought to reflect that. It does not understand Biblical Law as salvific, that is, it does not teach that salvation comes through the Law, but rather that the implications of Christian discipleship range through all of life. In other words, it is wholistic: Christianity is not only about one’s personal ethics or inner life, or family, but demands obedience in all places, and God’s Law is to be obeyed by all. When a nation perverts this Law, Christians are obligated to prophesy against them, and to use means to bring these nations back under the Law of God.
It does not mean that a nation will become Christian, in that all, or even a vast majority of its inhabitants will be Christians, but when man’s law is in disobedience to God’s Law, the Christian is obliged to speak and to act.
As to work, this view understands that all of work is a part of God’s Dominion Mandate, and thus is holy, sacred. There is no secular world.
As Abraham Kuyper said, “There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is sovereign over all, does not cry, ‘Mine!'”
The link is here.
Having given that, Doug Wilson’s entire post is below:
Let me get this straight.
1. You are the group that wants drivers working for FedEx and UPS to be unknowingly carrying around boxes with baby parts in them, babies who were killed for the sake of those parts, AND you want to be the enlightened, progressive group?
2. You are the party that wants lab workers to dump baby parts into pie plates, in order to sort through them carefully looking for the valuable bits, AND you want to be the liberals?
3. You are the faction who wants to keep us from showing mothers an ultrasound of their child, in order to keep that child alive, and you want to prevent those same mothers from seeing how you use the ultrasound (to avoid damaging the product), AND you want to be known as the ones in favor of the free flow of information?
4. You want to tell one group of people that we are just dealing with nondescript tissue and such, and you want to tell another group that you have livers, hearts, lungs, and limbs for sale, AND you want to be the party of intellectual consistency and forthrightness?
5. You want to be known as the group that thinks #blacklivesmatter, while you are the leading wholesaler of black people in America today, only you kill them first, with your prices much lower than 19th century prices were, AND you want to be the enlightened ones who are showing the way for us on matters of racial reconciliation?
6. You are the party of women’s rights and you agitate for protection for women, and yet with the exclamation #anotherboy, you reveal that you do in fact know that half of the bodies you are taking to market are female bodies, AND you want to be the feminists?
7. You are the group that has T-shirts reading “care no matter what,” and at the same time you are the merchants who fatten children for market, since 20 weekers bringing in more than the younger ones, AND you don’t want to be the witches straight out of medieval tales?
All I can tell is brother you have to wait.