Toby J. Sumpter's Blog, page 22

Mr. Potato Head in a Dress

Why Conservatives Must Reject the Whole Charade

Introduction
It may seem like I talk and write about nothing else, but in my defense, they keep doing it. I’m well aware of the hammer and nail fallacy and the temptations of certain hammer wielding fanatics to see the whole world as nothing but nails. But there is also the possibility that in this fanatical world of ours that there could be madmen going around tapping nails into boards and railings and leaving them there exposed, waiting to catch on any unsuspecting sweater that comes by. In such a world, it wouldn’t be a fallacy to be a man with a hammer, it would be a noble necessity. And so that is my defense. Not everything is a nail, but there certainly are a lot of nails sticking out and up in all manner of angular positions. And so here I am once again to insist that conservatives actually act like conservatives. Let us be done with half measures, compromises, and slightly left of early 2000s Democratic talking points. I mean even Barack Obama would not have publicly supported Dave Rubin’s delusional “marriage” to his sodomite partner, at least at the beginning of his presidency, not to mention his Margaret Sanger-lite eugenics and freezers full of breastmilk. 

Not Following Arguments
There are several things to note, but the overarching point is the inability or unwillingness for many conservatives to follow an argument, unlike, for example many liberals and leftists. Yours truly was quoted recently in the Idaho Statesman saying shockingly Christian things like only the Christian God sent His Son to die for you, and therefore we should follow Him and trust His words and laws for all public morality. It was shocking, I tell you. And apparently even some Mormons would be shocked. Also, apparently, this editorial was written by someone who gets out as much as the folks at Meet the Press on NBC. 

Now the whole argument was a grand example of a sort of slippery slope fallacy, except I might call it the slippery incline fallacy, since several of the conclusions the author suggested were the sorts of things you couldn’t get out of a stoned magician’s hat. Yes, I’m a Christian pastor, and yes, I’m on the board of the Idaho Family Policy Center, which is an explicitly Christian and Bible-based political action group, seeking to influence Idaho’s lawmakers to make Biblical and Christian laws. Yes, that’s true, and I’m not sorry at all. But then the opinion writer, one Bryan Clark, quotes some Iranian law code referring to sharia law, and says something along the lines of “waddabout that?” And we might just as easily quote Charlie Brown or Charlie Chaplin back to him and ask him the same. You see, in order to make arguments, the ideas have to actually, you know, connect. 

Let me make the point very carefully and clearly: just because someone believes that the Bible should be the basis for all human morality, including the public square, does not mean, following me closely here, that they want the Quran to be the basis for all human morality. See what Mr. Clark failed to remember is that these are two completely different books, two completely different religions, and the one that condones violence and genital mutilation is not Christianity. Speaking of which: which political party is openly defending unlimited access to gender destroying treatments and surgeries? Oh, that’s right, it would be the Democrats and their dutiful assistants, spineless Republicans. 

The Secular Neutrality Fallacy
Now, the real fallacy that Mr. Clark is engaged in is the secular neutrality fallacy. He’s assuming that there is this spooky boogeyman called “Religion” that is automatically coercive and fascist. But he, standing over there, is observing “religionists” from his non-religious, neutral and ever-so secular hideout, warning the citizens of Idaho of fell Religion’s approach. The problem with this of course is the fact that Mr. Clark is every bit as religious as the Idaho Family Policy Center, the Mormons, and Mr. Potato Head wearing a dress talking to Biden in the Whitehouse. And Mr. Clark can sputter and deny till the cows have come home and had a mind-numbing night cap, but the fact of the matter is that everyone is religious, just as sure as everyone is human, just as sure as everyone has a mom, even if Dave Rubin is determined not to let his kids have one.

“Religious” simply means that you have a worldview, a way of thinking about the world, a way of believing about the world. You may be atheist or agnostic, you may be a materialist and a secularist, but guess what? You believe that your vision of the world is true, and you live according to that belief. You may believe in science and democracy as your ground and pillars of truth, but that is your religion. And by the way, that is the religion that is currently established in our public schools and halls of government, despite the fact that the First Amendment prohibits a religion being established. But I digress.

Despite this secular neutrality fallacy, Mr. Clark did manage to connect a few dots better than most Republicans. He is correct that a thoroughly Biblical worldview denies that sexual immorality is good for human flourishing. He is correct that the Bible clearly condemns homosexuality, transgenderism, and gaudy clown crossdressing as sinful and in some cases criminal, just as nearly every law code in America recognized for about 200 years, until about five minutes ago. We are not promoting some new, novel vision for America. We simply want a Christian America that George Washington and John Adams would recognize and be proud of. But ever since so-called “free love” hit the scene mass incarceration, drug addiction, and suicides have sky-rocketed, not to mention riots, vandalism, burning police stations down, and Drag Queens twerking for kids. Sorry, your version of “freedom” looks like a lot more slavery and death.  

Mr. Potato Head in a Dress
Speaking of spooky boogeymans, you may have seen that Halloween came early to the Whitehouse, and it was a minstrel show mocking our mothers, wives, sisters, and daughters. Mr. Potatohead showed up in a dress doing blackface for women, and President Biden assured him, in his stream of consciousness sort of way, that he opposed all restrictions on genital mutilation surgeries and sex-sterilizing hormone therapies. Biden also said he supports open access to fentanyl for all toddlers. Ok, he didn’t say that, but I have no idea why he wouldn’t, if for example, the CDC came out and said it was good for toddler mental health. 

As far as I can tell, this point, full access to life-destroying medical poisons and dismemberment, was the central target of most conservatives and republicans. The clip that was shared and the shrieks that went up were almost entirely aimed at Biden’s blathering about wanting children to be castrated. Which, for the record, was horrific, disgusting, and appalling. I think he used the words “morally wrong” at some point in his stumbling soliloquy, and I almost threw up in my mouth. To call the right to burn, cut, and maim children for life any kind of moral right is raw madness. Again, if we are going to draw similarities between public policies and certain extremist religions, this is the place to do it. 

But the worst part wasn’t that. The worst part wasn’t the stammering support of child genital mutilation. The worst part was actually the whole charade. The worst part was President Biden talking to Mr. Potato Head in a dress, who began by saying it had been some number of days since he had begun crossdressing. And Biden made some inane comment about these people being great and brave. He also said it reminded him of that one time when he signed the Declaration of Independence and his Dad said to him, Hey Joey, nice job signing the Declaration of Independence! Or something like that… 

Sorry, where was I? Oh, right: the worst part was the whole charade. And this is why the charade is worse than what Biden said. You cannot merely object to the sexualization and mutilation of children, while talking straight faced with a Clown Man. If you admit the legitimacy of LGBTP perversion in adults, then there is absolutely no reason why you may prohibit children from learning about it. If dressing up as a clown is a morally legitimate, brave, and virtuous thing for adults to do, you cannot consistently ban children from being taught about clown life and clown virtues. You cannot admit Drag Queens to the public square as one reasonable option among many and then ban them from public libraries and schools.

Are they a morally virtuous option or not? But the same thing goes for divorce, adultery, fornication, pornography, homosexuality, buying eggs from a catalogue, mixing up babies in test tubes, renting wombs, and mangling the natural family in general. But piles of Republicans are unwilling to connect the dots. Piles of so-called conservatives want to camp out half-way down the water slide. But you can’t get on that slide of immorality and stop half-way down. You can’t jettison Biblical morality when it comes to your porn habits or adultery, and then magically pull Biblical morality out of your traditional values hat when they want to twerk in public parks for kids or chemically castrate them. 

Conclusion
And so yes, this brings us back to Jesus. Will we trust the word of man or the Word of God? Will we trust human consensus or will we trust the God who sent His only Son to die for sinners? And let us be clear, this God, the Christian God of the Bible, sent His only Son to die for all kinds of sinners who have committed all kinds of sins. This God sent His only Son to die for conservative sins and liberal sins, Republican sins and Democrat sins. This God so loved the world that He gave His only Son so that all who believe in Him might have eternal life. God sent His Son for homosexuals, for effeminate, for adulterers, for fornicators, for crossdressers, and for those who have mutilated their bodies or helped others do so. And since God sent His only Son to die for all of those sins, the hopelessness of conservatives must die, and the despair of leftists must die. Both imprison men and women in dark prisons, where they simply refuse to believe that they can be forgiven, cleansed, and made whole. Guilt, shame, regret, failure, hurt – all these things are hooks in the hearts of people that cause them to give up, to think it is too late, that nothing can be done, to succumb to whatever they think is safe. But the consensus is not safe, some moral tradition is not safe. Christ died for sinners, and He rose from the dead to make all things new, to make men new. “Behold what manner of love, the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called the sons of God… Hereby we perceive the love of God, because He laid His life down for us” (1 Jn. 3:1). So come and welcome to Jesus Christ. 

Fight Laugh Feast Thanksgiving & A Scourge Worse than Slavery

Introduction
I want to once again send up a hearty thanksgiving for the recent Fight Laugh Feast Conference. Gabe, our fearless Water Boy, did yeoman’s work behind the scenes, as did his small army of helpers, particularly Anna, as well as his mom Ms. Penny, and others. There was a large team of local volunteers that helped with security and crowd control and manning registration. There were many enthusiastic vendors and booths and podcasts, and thanks to Garrison for coordinating that. Thanks to our boy, Adrian, and his camera crew, along with our producer Neil making all the sound and video tech run seamlessly and capturing all the recordings. 

Huge thanks to the speakers who brought the fire: Pastor Douglas Wilson, Jared Longshore, Ben Merkle, George Gilder, for Mrs. Nancy Wilson and Mrs. Bekah Merkle for jumping in with their husbands for that roundtable discussion with Chocolate Knox about the power of stories and building family culture, and for Gabe jumping in to give that final charge at the end. 

Another unique part of our conference is the singing: largely a Capella psalms and hymns led by Aaron Snell. Big thanks to Aaron, especially for fighting through a cold. I’m also really grateful to Jason Whitlock and Megan Basham for joining us on the live show to talk about the role of journalism in our current cultural moment, and our need for Christian courage in our news reporting. Of course, we see God’s kindness in all of this, from the venue, to the weather, to all the attendees, to the talks, to the singing, to the fellowship, to the sponsors, and to all the kids (and their parents) who popped balloons at various points throughout the festivities. God is good. God is very good. Thanks be to God. 

We are very pumped for next year’s conference: The Politics of Six Day Creation at the Ark Encounter: October 12-14, 2023. Put it on your calendar now, and start saving your pennies and nickels and plan to bring your whole family. The venue holds a little over 2,000 people, and our prayer is that it will be sold out and packed to the gills with Rowdy Christians hungry to see the Lordship of Christ extended to every square inch of this world. 

One Final Thought
One of the striking things that Jason Whitlock said on our live CrossPolitic Show at the Conference in Knoxville was that he was willing to die to protect children from Drag Queens. He said that this going into schools with teachers in order to talk to kids about their gender identities is awful. Their childhoods are being stolen from them, and of course, frequently that sexualizing turns violent when the confusion escalates into irreversible trans hormones and surgeries. Jason said that what they’re doing to kids is “worse than slavery,” and therefore, he is willing to die to protect children from this abuse. 

He also acknowledged that we are living in a war zone of sorts where the culture war often breaks into our families and loved ones. When we asked him about Dave Rubin’s situation, he acknowledged that what Rubin is doing is sinful, and yet appreciates that Dave has been willing to hear him out and talk about it. Jason also noted that the issue of gay mirage even touches him through individuals who are very close to him, bringing tears to his eyes at one point. While Jason noted that he also struggles with certain sins, Chocolate Knox was quick to point out that there really is a difference between the harm different kinds of sins do in the world. Every sin deserves God’s judgment, but there really is a difference in damage that different sins do to ourselves, our families, and our society. And Jason was quick to agree. 

For example, gluttony is a sin, but it is not a crime. Drunkenness is a sin, but it is not a crime.  This same point came up in our conversation with Megan Basham about her reporting work surrounding the Southern Baptist Convention Sexual Abuse report. She noted that one of the central stories of the report relied on an adult woman who had carried on some kind of affair with a married pastor for a number of years, and only years after it had ended called it an “abusive relationship.” While it certainly may have been a crime, you cannot convict anyone of a crime apart from two or three witnesses. Assuming that the fact of the relationship was not disputed, we can certainly affirm that a sin occurred, and the crime of adultery was committed, but that is quite different than accusing a man of criminal coercion, rape, assault, etc. 

This is why we desperately need a return to biblical law. Biblical law provides these distinctions between sins and crimes, and is the foundation for all due process. The notions of innocent until proven guilty, the necessity of two or three witnesses, and the right of cross examination of accusers and witnesses are all biblical requirements. We have them in our Western common law because Alfred the Great and the English common law tradition understood that God’s law undergirds all true justice. The “general equity” of those civil laws (the eternal moral principles) given to Israel are still binding on all nations.  

If I had my sharpest wits about me in the conversation with Jason and Megan, I might have pressed all of this a bit further, particularly as it relates to children. I couldn’t agree more with Jason that what is currently being passed off as “sex ed” is exploitation that is worse than slavery. And the fact that it pierces into all of our families only underlines the point. But part of what we need is the kind of clear thinking that follows the logic in these conversations.

We cannot pretend that a man playacting to be “married” to another man will stop there. You cannot allow for marriage to be redefined to include two men (or two women) and imagine that it will not also include eugenics. You cannot allow for “family” to be redefined to include two men, who cannot biologically reproduce and then, based on any sound logic, deny them the opportunity to buy eggs, mix up some babies in a test tube, and rent wombs for 9 months, all while storing up freezers full of breastmilk. On what basis can we deny those things, if we have already granted legitimacy to their “marriage” or “family?”

Conclusion
My point is simply this: Dave Rubin is a Drag Queen in conservative Drag. He is dressed like a nice man and talks like a Conservative (on some issues at least), but he is every bit a groomer as the gaudy clown men twerking in government schools and libraries. But his version of Drag is far more insidious for its deception. He is tearing the fabric of reality apart by trying to redefine marriage and family, and he is intentionally practicing eugenics by flipping through catalogues where he selected the eggs he would buy, harvested from women treated like biological machines, is paying women large sums of money to use their wombs as though they are mere objects to be used, and finally, he is purchasing breast milk off the market as though women are mere mammals to be milked, and all of this, so that Dave and his partner can live in their delusional reality and raise children in those lies and propaganda, divorced from their mothers, groomed to be just as sexually confused, if not more, than their fathers. 

This is worse than slavery. And we should be willing to die to protect children from this awful scourge. 

This is the Plan

Part of what we are celebrating here every week is God’s way of building His Kingdom in this world. And God’s way is through the Cross. God’s primary way of building His Kingdom is through the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. God is building His Kingdom through the announcement of that historic event. God turns lives into living pictures of that reality through that authoritative announcement. Through that gospel message, men, women, and children take up their own crosses, confess sin, forgive sin, love generously, give sacrificially, and live holy, obedient lives. 

It’s hard for people to hold these two things together: sacrifice and progress, suffering and building, but what we are talking about is death and resurrection. This is God’s way, and we see it throughout Scripture. But perhaps one of the greatest examples is the book of Acts: beginning with Pentecost all the way to the end of the book with Paul under house arrest in Rome, God drives the Kingdom forward through controversy, slander, misunderstanding, riots, beatings, executions, imprisonments, and shipwrecks. Chapter after chapter, you and I are tempted to think that the latest collision is bad for the gospel, but time after time, Luke says: and many were added to their number, and the brothers were greatly encouraged, many leading women of the city believed, and so on. 

This is God’s way. God allows controversies, confusion, slanders to His people so that people will accuse them, so that they can answer the questions, confusions, and accusations with truth and grace again. Why? So that the gospel will go forth, so that more people will hear. The apostles were made public spectacles, so that when they spoke, everyone would listen. Not every one of us is called to a public role in this, but every one of us must understand that this is the plan. And that’s what this bread and wine mean. Jesus is building His Kingdom through the Cross, through death and resurrection. So when the next controversy arises, the next slander appears in the paper, the next hit piece comes across your social media feed, do not think “Oh No.” Think, “OK, Lord, here we go.” This is the plan. 

So come and welcome to Jesus Christ. 

Photo by Scandinavian Backlash on Unsplash

Loving the Standard

“Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.” (Prov. 22:6). The goal of Christian parenting is not merely that our children would submit to the standard; our goal in Christian parenting is that our children would love the standard. Just a few verses further down it says, “Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline drives it far from him.” (Prov. 22:15) This means training our children in the way they should go takes work, and a lot of the most intense work is on the front end, in the early years. 

So when children are young they need a great deal of instruction, correction, training, and discipline. When children are very young, they should not be given many choices or asked for their opinion. The primary goal of the early years is to teach joyful obedience. And we really must underline both words: joyful and obedient. To some, this kind of parenting may seem strict, but if anyone watched for a few minutes, they ought to get the impression that you’re having a blast. 

Yes, it’s hard work: lots of teaching, lots of spanking, lots of do-overs and practicing, but there ought to be a big grin on your face because you’ve been given the gift of raising immortal souls. And if there’s a big grin on your face, it won’t be long before the kids are smiling and laughing with you. If you love the standard and know that you are giving your kids an amazing gift, pretty soon, they will love the standard too. 

Somewhere in mid elementary school, the intense teaching gives way to occasional corrections, finally giving way to some point in high school, when you tell your son or daughter that they are free to do whatever they please. Unfortunately, many parents are negligent in the early years and then create significant problems by inverting this picture. If you’re indulgent in the early years, you will often find that you are terrified of the thought of that conversation in high school and many parents try to clamp down then. But that only creates more problems and tensions.

The goal is not to get your kids to submit to the standard; your goal is to get your kids to love the standard: to love Christ, to love His ways, to love His people all their days. 

Photo by Naassom Azevedo on Unsplash

The Failure of Blueface Liberalism (& Libertarianism)

Introduction
We are living in the failure of the so-called Enlightenment. There, I said it. I declared it, just like those people declaring that men can get pregnant, just like Putin annexing parts of Ukraine, just like Biden asking for Representative Jackie Walorski. Except, I’m right.  And maybe we should have known before now since we have been calling it the “Enlightenment.” What was going on before the “Enlightenment?” We don’t know, but apparently it was full of superstition and confusion: it was “the dark ages.” You know, when things like Christianity were the dominant philosophical and spiritual force in the West, when slavery and unjust wars were dying out, and scientific discovery, world exploration, industrial expansion, artistic ingenuity, and medical innovation were all on the rise. You know, darkness like that.

It was while all of these massive gifts were being given that some of the thinkers of really big and important thoughts began saying ridiculous things like, “look what we did all by ourself.” Look what our big brains did. Look what we thought up with our powerful reason. And, having pulled themselves all the way up to a standing position, they girded their pullups about their loins and stuck out their puffy little fingers, and began saying silly things like: religion is not reasonable, God is not reasonable, revelation is not reasonable, and therefore, religion must be kept in an important, but out of the way closet in the back of the house, like a friendly but slightly crazy uncle. We will acknowledge his existence in vague and salutatory ways, but we won’t invite him to any of our very important conversations or discussions. Religion causes wars. Religion makes people think they really know things, and having come to believe that they really know things, they will think that other people are wrong. And when some people think they are really right, and other people think they are really wrong, that makes for conflict, and conflict turns into wars. 

The Need for a Dictionary
I’m a simple man, but since the advent of the secular, materialistic state, I do have some questions about this peaceful utopia of “shut up you, bigot” camaraderie and brotherhood. Which, in turn, is breaking out into smash-and-grab looting and pillaging of department stores and convenience stores in the cities most committed to this secular golden age. Of course, what I’m pointing out is that the secular liberal state has not banished religion or morality or strong opinions or conflict or wars. If anything, the rise of secular states has only increased the strong opinions and conflict and wars. Secularism is a religion, even if they keep denying it. They call on their gods of climate change, and we call on the God who made heaven and earth. So maybe we should call them truth-deniers, religion-deniers, morality-deniers, whatever. Atheism is a religion. Materialism is a religion. Secular statism is a religion. They are all faith-commitments in a worldview that informs their versions of what is good, true, beautiful, just, and free. 

The point is that every community, every nation, every business, every family must have a dictionary and rule book. We must have agreed upon definitions of words, terms, and agreed upon rules of engagement. This is essential to every human enterprise. And whoever comes along and insists that there is no need for dictionaries or rule books is not thereby actually banishing definitions and rules, they are in fact insisting on their own definitions and rules, but now they are not fixed and can change and morph and evolve at whim. The secular liberal/libertarian state is that guy. He’s the Ref who shows up at the football game and insists that rules are unnecessary: lines and endzones are meanspirited and superstitious. He’s the English teacher who insists that definitions only make people surly and fussy. What we need, he says, is neutrality, not taking any sides on definitions or rules, and this will create, he insists, maximum freedom for all. But he’s lying. He’s lying his head off. 

And we know this because we ought to immediately ask the question: what is neutrality and what is freedom? And when he says something like “neutrality is objective and not taking sides,” we should say, great, and where’d you get that definition? And if he says, Oh, that’s just self-evident. You should squint and say, “Oh you mean like the resurrection of Jesus from the dead?” And when they look at you like you’ve sprouted a third eye on your forehead, you should smile and say, “Or that life begins at conception or that drag queens are doing blackface for women?” Completely self-evident?

You can’t use words and then insist that definitions are self-evident. Try that with someone who doesn’t speak the language. You can say the words “neutral” and “freedom” all day long till you’re as blue-faced as Braveheart, and a non-English speaker from China will still not know what you’re talking about. And vice versa.  

So what we are insisting on is reality, and we are opposed to secular make believe, Enlightenment fairyland, and rationalist irrationalism. We are insisting on a dictionary and a basic rule book, and we are insisting that the foundational dictionary and rule book be the Bible, the Old and New Testaments, the 66 books agreed upon by all Christians everywhere that are the Word of Triune God. We are insisting that the Bible be the basis for all society, Christians, Muslims, atheists, Republicans, libertarians, and smug secularists. 

Of course then the cries go up of “theocracy!” and “Sharia law!” and “fascism!” and the claim comes that if you privilege the Christian Scriptures as authoritative you’ve just demolished the whole list above. Nice try, you Christian Nationalists – you, you just want everyone to convert to your religion. But not so fast. Isn’t that what secular liberals want? I mean, if secular liberals say that we must all play by their rules, would you make the same claim about them? Are they fascists? Why not? The secular liberals want their assumptions, definitions, and standards to rule the playing field for everyone else, right? Why is it safer for society to submit to a religion without a book than to submit to a religion with a book? Why do you prefer the make-it-up-as-we-go-along morality to the settled-in-stone-for-2,000 years morality of Christian Scripture? 

Theocracy in America?
Now, do I want a theocracy in America? By the common definition of that term, which is subject to the whims of the lust mob scrubbing and re-writing definitions on Wikipedia, no. What is commonly meant by “theocracy” is “ecclesiocracy,” with pastors and elders and church councils running a country, essentially like it is in Muslim nations. No, I don’t want that at all. I am a very happy supporter of the First Amendment. I actually believe in the institutional separation of church and state, and I think you should too. But what I don’t believe in is the separation between God and state, the separation between reality and state, or the separation between gravity and state. Which is just several ways of saying the same thing. 

At the very least, we must not believe in the separation of dictionaries and the Constitution. We must insist that we be able to look up words like “justice” and “general welfare” and “liberty” and “domestic tranquility.” What do those words actually mean? And when we find those fixed definitions, that will mean that certain high priests of the secular cult must be fired and told that they were very, very wrong. The secularists moved in and insisted that these things are all so very, very “self-evident” and now we have FBI agents raiding the homes of pro-life Catholics because they stood on a sidewalk to plead for the lives of the unborn. The secularists insisted that these things are “self-evident,” and now some are insisting that this means Drag Queens – which, let us not forget are dudes dressed up like gaudy clown-women – must be allowed access to library story hours and young children. The secularists insisted that these things are “self-evident,” and we have minors having their breasts cut off and given hormones and hormone blockers to chemically castrate them. And all of this in the name of “liberty” and “justice” and “general welfare.” Forgive me while I laugh in your face. 

At the very least, let us agree to disagree. Liberalism and libertarianism have utterly failed. Burning down police stations, looting department stores, chopping up little babies and selling their body parts, buying and selling eggs, renting wombs, castrating teenage boys and girls, and demanding that sexually provocative clowns be given access to children – all of these things in the name of liberty and justice – yeah, we’re going to need a dictionary. We need a rule book. Let us stop with this childish nonsense that says words simply have self-evident meanings. That’s about as coherent as the “Knights Who Say Ni!” I’ve a mind to start my own club, called the Knights Who Say No. 

Before anyone else gets elected, let us insist that they tell us the foundation for their understanding of truth, morality, goodness, justice, and liberty. Of course just because they say “the Bible” doesn’t mean they have the foggiest notion of what it’s in that book, but at least we can hold them accountable. If they say the Quran, that’s helpful too. And if they say Scripture as interpreted by Catholic dogma, that’s helpful too. Of course Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi have insisted that their Catholic religion is very dear to them, while supporting monstrous policies of theft by taxation and inflation and murder by abortion, but let us begin by a simple return to sanity and simply insist on a dictionary. What will our definitions be? This is required for basic human communication. But a refusal to have a dictionary is fundamentally a refusal to communicate. It is a refusal to have a conversation. And that is how we have arrived at this “shut up, you bigot” moment of harmony and brotherhood. 

Photo by melissa mjoen on Unsplash

The Godness of God

The Bible teaches that God sovereignly decrees everything that comes to pass, including salvation. Romans 9 says that God has mercy on whom He has mercy, compassion on whom He has compassion, and He hardens those He hardens. And the immediate response of anyone following the argument is also included in Romans 9: Then why does God find fault? How can God punish those He has hardened? Who can resist His will? And the answer is there in Romans 9 as well: “Who are you, O man, to argue with God? Shall the thing formed say to Him who formed him, why have you made me like this?”  

God is the potter, and we are the clay, and He has the right to make what He wants from the same lump, some vessels for honor, some for dishonor. And He does this in order to display His power, and wrath, and mercy. This is a great stumbling block for many, and Romans 9 acknowledges that as well: “Behold, I lay in Zion a stumbling stone and rock of offense, and whosever believes on Him shall not be ashamed” (Rom. 9:33). 

What is that stumbling stone and rock of offense? It is the sovereignty of God, the Godness of God. He is God and we are not. He is God, and He does whatever He pleases. 

But, you might be tempted to say, does this turn us all into robots, into puppets? And the answer is clearly, no. God is sovereign, and He does whatever He pleases, and the call is still there: “whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved, whoever believes in Him will not be put to shame.” It’s not like there are some people who really want to be saved but they can’t since God won’t let them. No, everyone who wants to be saved only wants to because God has given them that desire. 

So do not say, there is nothing for me to do. No, do not stumble on this truth, that God is God and you are not. Embrace it. Let it humble you. Let it drive you to your knees in worship. Believe in Him and you will never be put to shame. 

Photo by Mads Schmidt Rasmussen on Unsplash

Christ is There

The King’s Cross men read the Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment last month for our book discussion, and I mentioned to the men that one of the things that has stuck with me from the first time I read it all the way through was the fact that Jeremiah Burroughs preached the sermons that became that book right in the middle of the English Civil War. It was a huge blessing to me when I realized that when all of England was in turmoil and unrest and true instability, Pastor Burroughs thought that what his people needed was a series of messages on Christian contentment. And I think it’s a testimony to Pastor Burroughs that his people made sure that these messages were kept and published after he died only a year or two later.

One of the key texts on this topic is Phil. 4:11-12: “I have learned, in whatever state I am in, to be content. I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound: everywhere and in all things I am instructed to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” 

Notice that. The strength that Christ gives is for contentment. It was for walking through moments and seasons of unrest and poverty, and for walking through moments and seasons of success and wealth. And this gets at I think what Pastor Burroughs realized. Contentment is not apathy. Contentment is not stoicism. Contentment is a quiet and resting heart in the middle of everything. And the contented heart is quiet and resting (not a roller coaster of emotions) because Christ is there. Christ is there strengthening His people in all things, through all things. 

And that’s the key thing. We need strength for the journey. We need strength to fight sin. We need strength to obey. We need strength to trust. And that means we need Christ strengthening us to rest in Him while we fight, while we obey, while we wait. And that is what is offered to you here. Christ Himself offers Himself. Come and rest, so that you might be strengthened for the fight.

So come and welcome to Jesus Christ. 

Photo by Xenia Bogarova on Unsplash

7 Principles for Raising Kids in a Pornified World

Introduction
I’m a pastor, and my primary job is to shepherd the people God has entrusted to my care. This means teaching them and feeding them with the Word of God as well as guarding them and protecting them. Christ gives specific instructions for receiving children and protecting them, not causing them to stumble. And here we are living in a pornified world, where immodesty is everywhere, innocence is increasingly rare, and debauchery is invading every space. How do we raise our children to be both innocent as doves and wise as serpents? How do we warn them about real dangers without leading them into temptation or stealing their childhoods? I can’t pretend to cover exhaustive answers to these questions in one simple post, but I do want to sketch a number of principles to encourage further discussion and hopefully give some tools to parents for the task.  

Approach the task of parenting and this particular task of guarding and teaching your children about sexual sin and dangers in faith. Fearful parenting is not faithful parenting, and while God’s grace covers many of our sins, including fear, we cannot expect God’s blessing on our efforts when we are going about our days terrified. Yes, there is plenty to tempt us to fear, but the godly woman does not fear anything that is terrifying (1 Pet. 3:6) (and neither should a godly man). Related to this: the joy of the Lord is your strength. The central element in Christian joy is the forgiveness of sins. So check your own heart first: are your sins forgiven? Are you in full fellowship with God, with your spouse, with your parents? As far as it depends on you, are you at peace with everyone around you? That is the central source of Christian joy, and the joy of the Lord is your strength, including the strength of your parenting. Fear can feel vigilant, but Christian joy is actually more perceptive. Christian joy can see what fearful anxiety cannot. And we most certainly need to see clearly in these days. And that means that we must be entirely committed to keeping short accounts, no bitterness, no resentment, no personal backlogs of sin, and lots of forgiveness. A family that confesses sin and forgives from the heart is a family where Jesus is present, and His joy is guarding and protecting everyone. Pray regularly. It is of course far too common to read about praying, talk about praying, think about praying, and do everything but actually pray. Pray with and for your children. Pray for their safety. Pray for their purity. Pray for their future marriages and children (and grandchildren). Bless your children. When my children were young, I blessed by sons every night with my hand on their head saying, “May the Lord bless you and keep and make you a mighty man, and may you kill dragons and giants and sin, all the days of your life, through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.” And on my daughters I would say, “May the Lord bless you and keep you and make you wise and beautiful, and may your children and grandchildren rise up and call you blessed, through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.” I suppose I pronounced that blessing on their heads a few thousand times before they grew to ages when they stayed up later than me. We regularly pray for my children’s future spouses and children and families in our family prayers. And my wife and I have prayed for our children’s purity, protection, wisdom, and courage for years. Ask the Lord specifically to show you anything you need to know in order to shepherd your children well. Ask the Lord not to let any sins fester or go hidden or unaddressed in your family. Ask the Lord to do whatever it takes to get at anything that needs to be addressed. Does our God send angels to protect our children? Does He not hear the prayers of His people, especially for their children?Teach the glory of sexual difference from the youngest ages. Little boys must be taught to honor their mothers as women and ladies. Holding doors and chairs, waiting for mom to sit down to dinner, honoring and protect sisters in word and deed. Little girls must be taught to respect their brothers, to honor them, and to be modest around them. This includes many practical things like giving space for modesty, separate bedrooms for boys and girls, no bawdy games or teasing. I taught my boys from a very young age to look away from immodest women, whether in person, on a screen, or at the swimming pool or beach. I explained to them that God made women beautiful, but their bodies are not for us. I told them that one day God would give them a wife, and her body would be for them to enjoy. I told my little girls that God made them beautiful, they are to adorn them in a way that is truly lovely, but that their bodies would one day be for their husband. We made a point to talk about dating and courtship from time to time when they were little. We told them that they would not play games about “who likes who” or who has a crush on who, no pairing off, no girlfriends/boyfriends until marriage is a real option.Guard your children’s friendships, even in a Christian community. Don’t assume that just because someone goes to your Christian school or attends your church that you share the same standards. We’ve always explained to our kids that they certainly may have friends, but their best friends are their siblings and family. So we frequently turned down invitations to friends’ houses just so we could have time together as a family. We don’t do sleepovers as a general rule, and we’ve preferred groups and class parties to one on one hangouts. We guarded entertainment standards closely when our kids were little, and we share the same standards now that they are nearly all in their teens. And make sure you’re not merely looking out for immodesty or sex scenes or violence or bad language, look out for toxic worldviews, bad attitudes, catty or flirtatious characters, dishonored parents, dishonorable heroes, and lies about God or His world. Sometimes we might watch a movie or show with some bits of these things, but we aimed to point it out, laugh at it, and mock it.Cultivate an atmosphere of gracious, joyful nosiness. Ask your kids about everything, but joyfully and graciously, not as a cross-examining prosecuting attorney. Ask about their friends, what they are watching, listening to, thinking about. Ask them about their bodies (appropriately), prepare them for puberty, both physiologically and spiritually and emotionally. What temptations will they face? What challenges will they face? Tell them ahead of time. Check in with them. But do it as their friends, as their counselors, as their coaches. And don’t bluster or blowup if they tell you something concerning. Remember, the first point in this list. Talk to your children with faith, and if something comes out that needs to be addressed, first thank the Lord for it. What an answer to prayer to be told about a sin or a struggle. Make sure you remain joyful and gracious even if you have to have hard conversations, even if there needs to be confession, repentance, restitution, and consequences. Remember what Pastor Doug says, there’s no situation that is so bad that you can’t make it worse. Your anger, your blustering, your emotional spasms don’t make your children more likely to tell you more. If there has been sin, walk through biblical confession and repentance, forgiveness, new obedience, and accountability. We rightly mock college campus “safe spaces,” but a family really should be a safe space for children. It should be a place where you gently and cheerfully probe, and they feel completely at ease telling you what they are thinking about, what they are going through. And they should have complete confidence that if they stumble into sin, you will walk with them through it gladly. Related to this is that you want your family to be plugged into a faithful, Bible-believing church where you respect and trust the elders and pastors. And you want your children to know that. You want them to know that you ask your pastors for counsel and advice, and if anything significant ever came up that required pastoral counseling or accountability, you (and they) would trust the pastors and elders to handle things well. Have family policies and safeguards for internet and technology. Generally keep all screens out where everyone can see them. No taking iPads off to the back bedroom alone. Family computers or televisions should be out where they are visible to the whole family. Filters, accountability software, time limits can also be very helpful. Apart from basic privacy for changing and bathing, we’ve generally had our boys have open door policies, especially while they were younger. But sometimes you might just take the doors off your boys’ rooms. Boys don’t need doors on their bedrooms. And boys should stay out of their sisters’ rooms, and generally, vice versa. Generally lean against “alone time” – it’s not good for man to be alone, and that wasn’t just talking about bachelors. Stay busy with good things. Boys especially need to be kept busy with good work, hard work, sports, competition, and physically exhausting activities. While parents should hover closely over their daughters in traditional schooling situations, they should hover over their sons in homeschooling setups. Of course, we should hover in all scenarios, but all things being equal, give special attention in these directions. There’s a certain homeschool romanticism that goes around from time to time, imagining that children will naturally walk through meadows, plucking flowers, and spontaneously compose beautiful poetry. It imagines that children need free time, play time, and decries the regimentation of traditional school days and school years as squashing the free-learning spirits of children. Now, don’t get me wrong, I think you should have family vacations and Sabbaths and holidays, but I do think that there’s a certain form of that romanticism that is a set up for boys (especially) to stumble into sin, especially sexual sin. Children are not depositories of wisdom and brilliance and creativity. They are depositories of sin. Left to themselves, they will come up with folly, sin, and rebellion. “The rod and reproof give wisdom: but a child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame” (Prov. 29:15). It’s hard work raising children well, and that in part means long, busy days. Parents must not resent the hard work it takes to keep children busy with good things: carpooling, pickup, drop off, school, musical instruments, sports, 4H, understood rightly, are opportunities to stay busy with good things. I certainly grant that this can look different in different contexts, but children should be kept busy and they need a lot of monitoring, accountability, feedback, and correction. There should be a certain sunny cynicism in your parenting, such that when everything is quiet in the house, you should wonder who’s getting into trouble. If you haven’t heard from one of them in fifteen minutes, where are they and what sin is it? And then one day, you’ll look up with that instinctive curiosity, and then you’ll remember that they’ve all left and started their own families, full of joy and laughter and faithfulness and purity. 

Photo by Ryunosuke Kikuno on Unsplash

The Camera of Gratitude

Gratitude multiplies the gifts of God. We are incredibly simple creatures. We are simple and easily distracted, easily bored. But God is infinite, and infinitely glorious. When God gives, His gifts are infinitely creative, gracious, fascinating, and good. 

Think about the way the best craftsmen create their products, whether jewelers or carpenters or artisan cooks and bakers. They give special care to the details of their craft, and you might appreciate a few of them. But frequently, if you stopped to ask them about everything that went into it, they could talk for a long time about numerous details, you never noticed. 

It is the same with God, only on a much greater scale. We are walking around in His Great Masterpiece. Think about the intricacy of our bodies, the intricacies of our planet in our solar system, the intricacies of the weather, the animal kingdom, the trees and plants, and oceans and rivers, and I’ve only just skimmed the surface. We’re only just beginning to appreciate the genetic details, the intricacies of DNA, and what exactly has God done out at the far reaches of the universe that our cameras are just beginning to see? 

Now take that camera, pointed at the galaxies, let’s call it the camera of gratitude, and turn it on your house, your pantry, your car, your spouse, your kids, your parents, your roommates. What intricate gifts are there? What complex, mind-blowing colors and flavors and textures and stories and gifts are there? Gratitude multiplies the gifts of God. Of course, in a sense, there aren’t really more gifts, but gratitude allows you to see them, to taste them, to enjoy them like never before. 

And the central gift is forgiveness. All these good gifts that you and I barely notice, and then we have the audacity to think that we can live however we want. In our pride, we don’t want to admit that we are wrong. And then we are scared to humble ourselves because of what people might think. But open your eyes for just a moment and look around at this place. It is loaded with gifts. It is loaded with grace. Open your mouth. Open your heart and give thanks. And come and welcome to Jesus Christ. 

Photo by Gabe Hobbs on Unsplash

Will the Real Groomers Please Stand Up?

Introduction
If you have been alive and even halfway alert over the last decade or two, you will not have missed the dire warnings from many of prevalent sexual abuse in our culture. If you have ever googled our church community here, or maybe your great aunt Gertrude did for you, you will know that we have had to deal with sexual abuse in our churches here in Moscow. 

Our position on all sexual abuse has been steady and uniform. We condemn it all. However, we are Bible believing Christians, and therefore, we are also intent on obeying the Bible in it all and through it all. This means defining “abuse” biblically and not according to the whims of our culture. And given the way the word has been used and weaponized, you can put me down as one who definitely goes squinty eyed when the accusations start flying. This not because I don’t think abuse happens. This is because I know that it does, that there are real victims and real perpetrators, and there are also some real villains out there stirring up emotional mobs in order to keep everyone distracted while they continue to groom our culture and our kids for exploitation. 

Obeying the Bible
Obeying the Bible means distinguishing between “sins” and “crimes,” and distinguishing between proper jurisdictions. Since Jesus is Lord, He assigns authorities their powers, and they may not go outside of those powers. Since Jesus is Lord, the civil magistrate has true authority over crimes, and true sexual exploitation and assault is criminal activity, and therefore must be reported to the civil authorities. These are things that we have practiced for decades. We also believe in the true authority of family government and church government over those sins, and those respective governments are authorized by God to bring biblical wisdom to bear on these matters. None of these governments exercise this authority perfectly, but we deny that the civil government or their licensed gurus are better suited to handle sin than families and churches. 

Obeying the Bible also means that we may not convict anyone of crimes or sins without the testimony of two or three witnesses. This applies to accusations of abuse, but it also applies to accusations of mishandling of abuse or abuse charges. One person may bring charges, but when you hear the accused, as you must, you will often find true contradiction and differences of perspective (Prov. 18:17). Apart from two or three witnesses, nothing may be established (Dt. 19:15). We do not believe in vigilante justice or lynching, and we don’t think you should either.

This may come as a shock, but just because you read something on the internet doesn’t mean it’s true, and just because you have one witness doesn’t mean it’s true. The Bible requires multiple, independent witnesses. This is because the Bible requires the presumption of innocence: innocent until proven guilty. This is nothing less than the law of love: do unto others as you would have them do to you. You should act on accusations the way you would want others to act on them if they were about you. The Bible furthermore requires that false witnesses be made to suffer the same punishment their false testimony would have brought on the falsely accused (Dt. 19:18-19). This also means that the accused have the right to face and question and cross-examine their accusers. 

Incidentally, this is precisely what Jesus was appealing to in the famous story of the woman caught in adultery (Jn. 8). Jesus was actually quoting from Deuteronomy 17 which says that the hands of the witnesses shall be the first to cast the stones of execution (Dt. 17:5-7). Jesus was not suggesting that only someone who is completely innocent of any sin could be a witness against the woman. Jesus was saying that whoever was willing to be cross-examined as a witness could cast the first stone. “Without sin” means without any guile, a true testimony, and since they were accusing the woman of being caught in the “very act” of adultery, a good defense attorney would no doubt have a number of questions for that witness about how he was in a position to know that the adultery was taking place. 

Was he also guilty of the same crime? Had he been involved in a conspiracy to entrap the woman? And for a bunch of the men gathered, they had likely only heard the rumors, or perhaps they had slept with the woman themselves. At any rate, when no witnesses or accusers remained, Jesus did what the law required and exonerated the woman, while charging her to “go and sin no more.” The implication is that she was likely guilty of something related to the charges, but God’s justice is actually far more merciful than humanistic lawyering. Yes, that means that sometimes, lacking two or three witnesses, true criminals will be let free. And in God’s world it is better that an occasional crime goes unpunished than for innocents to be convicted without clear testimony. 

Some Kind of Psychotic
But all of this is merely the introduction to my main point, which is that our land is some kind of psychotic and schizophrenic. On the one hand, we breathlessly share juicy rumors of sexual abuse, and on the other hand, we insist on PRIDE festivals and parades, where children are given popsicles shaped like genitalia. On the one hand, we share stories of churches that welcome repentant pedophiles (with all kinds of accountability and safeguards in place), while we insist that Drag Queens be allowed access to children’s story hours in public libraries. Our culture insists on pornographic material being used for so-called sex education, and then we are somehow shocked when predators emerge in our midst. Look, the point is very simple: you cannot encourage sexual immorality and then be shocked when you get it. 

Of course this goes back to Darwin, Rousseau, Freud, and their descendants who rejected God as Creator and Definer of human existence and human happiness. These liars and frauds insisted that people must create and define themselves, and Freud, in particular, insisted that the very center of human happiness is sexual stimulation and pleasure. While Freud recognized that some of those desires had to be repressed for society to function, he set up the framework for the internal tension between sexual desire and society, preparing the way for others who would begin pushing the boundaries, until we arrived at the present, with Drag Queens twerking in public parks and children being taught that this is normal human behavior. While the whole thing really is driven by lust, the pseudo-academic defense of this grooming is that repressed sexual desires will come out in violence if they are not allowed to be explored early on. But that is simply false and a complete lie. 

The opposite is actually true. The more you feed the fire of lust, the bigger the blaze. You cannot cut the brake lines and then call for a halt at some point down that grade. You cannot reject the God of Heaven and natural law and then say, but we draw the line here. You cannot swear up and down that you believe in the sacred goddess of Consent, and then be shocked to find out that with enough popsicles and twerking, you can get Consent anywhere, anytime.

The name of this is grooming, and as any abuse-advocate worth their salt will tell you, even if you got “consent,” it is still abuse because it is still wrong. But there we are appealing to a standard. There we are appealing to an immoveable, transcendent law. And if you want a right and wrong, that doesn’t budge, that cannot be moved by lustful whims of evil men, then it must be established by God Himself. Otherwise, you are only enshrining the preferences, the traditions, the sensibilities of a mob, even a very well-dressed and semi-civilized mob, that goes by the name democratic consensus. Remember what Benjamin Franklin once said, democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what’s for dinner. 

Conclusion
So what will it be? God or man? Christ or chaos? The law of God or the lusts of man? There is no neutrality. There is no middle ground. Do you want to protect children? Do you want to see women honored? Then you cannot do it your way. You cannot appeal to common sense. You cannot appeal to reason. You cannot appeal to science. All of those, divorced from the Maker, divorced from His Word, will only give you more of the same, as will all the luke-warm middling attempts of conservatives to appease the masses (but enough about the DailyWire bowing and scraping before Dave Rubin’s freezers full of breastmilk).

NBC’s Meet the Press just did a story on our church community, and it was pretty hilarious how the round table discussed our church like we were some kind of aboriginal tribe in the jungles, describing wide-eyed how we want to make our city a Christian town and we believe that wives should submit to their husbands, and we don’t believe in gay marriage or abortion, sort of like an airline pilot coming on over the loudspeaker to announce that in the benighted days of yore, people used to believe in this superstitious notion of gravity, obsolete notions of thrust and lift and force, but now we know that planes just fly all by themselves. I mean, our nation was built on deep reverence for the Christian Scriptures, honoring the institution of marriage and the marriage bed, and whatever our foibles and sins (and there were many), there was a widespread attempt to make this a Christian land, a city on a hill, with Christian marriage and morality at the center. 

As Diana Schaub at the Heritage Foundation summarizes Alexander de Tocqueville’s description of early America: “Despite the official separation of church and state, there is an “indirect action” of religion on politics through [mores] [or moral habits]. “It is in regulating the family,” says Tocqueville, that religion “works to regulate the state.” Religious governance of the private sphere—in other words, the superintendence of sexual purity in particular—is direct, whereas the beneficial political consequences of that moral control are indirect. Religion serves as the “safeguard of mores,” and mores then become the “guarantee of laws.”

Elsewhere, Schaub cites Tocqueville’s famous appraisal of the situation of women in marriage: “As for me, I shall not hesitate to say it: although in the United States the woman scarcely leaves the domestic circle and is in certain respects very dependent within it, nowhere does her position seem higher to me; and now that I approach the end of this book where I have shown so many considerable things done by Americans, if one asked me to what do I think one must principally attribute the singular prosperity and growing force of this people, I would answer that it is to the superiority of its women” (emphasis mine).

It was pretty funny that while women were given a voice to criticize our church community in the NBC special, they were not given a voice from within our church community. It may be because the illusion of oppression would have been utterly exposed.

But the point is that if you will not have Christ and His Word, you are left with the words and whims of man. If you will not honor the Maker in whose image male and female is created and defined, then you will inevitably end up with cultures seeking to redefine what male and female and sexuality and marriage are. Whenever people deny God, they are always looking for a job opening. And when cultures are grooming little deviant gods, taught to follow their own heart, to do whatever makes them happy, and there are options on full display in public parks, do not tell me that you care about children, about women, or about abuse. If you do not see it there, you are a major part of the problem.

All of these things are related, in other words. And when anyone shows up saying that they want to help you with sexual abuse, you should be asking a bunch of questions. Things like: What is marriage? What is a woman? What is a man? What is your standard for justice, evidence, due process, and penalties? And if they do not go to the Word, to the Bible, then there is no light in them (Is. 8:20). 

Photo by Alexander Grey on Unsplash