Toby J. Sumpter's Blog, page 33

Robert George Latham R.I.P.

“And they brought him to the place called Golgotha (which means Place of a Skull). And they offered him wine mixed with fmyrrh, but he did not take it. And they crucified him and gdivided his garments among them, casting lots for them, to decide what each should take. And hit was the third hour4 when they crucified him. And the inscription of the charge against him read, i“The King of the Jews.” And with him they crucified two jrobbers, kone on his right and one on his left” (Mk. 15:22-27).

This is the account of the crucifixion of Jesus, and I want to point out three things about this text and apply them to what we are doing here today in honor and memory of our brother and friend Bob Latham. 

The first is to point out where Jesus was crucified it was at a place called Golgotha which means “place of a skull.” The same place is also called “Calvary” which means the same thing in Latin. While there is some debate over the exact location of this hill, it seems likely that this place was commonly used for executions. It reminds us of God’s promise in the Garden of Eden on another hill, thousands of years earlier. After Adam and Eve sinned, God cursed the serpent, the Devil, and promised that the seed of the woman, a descendant of Eve would crush His head. It’s fitting that Jesus died to crush the serpent’s head on a hill called place of the skull. 

The second thing to note is that right before they actually crucified Him, they offered Him wine mixed with myrrh. That is, they offered Him pain killer, anesthesia. But Jesus did not take it. Jesus refused to have the pain dulled. And it’s worth asking why. Couldn’t Jesus just go through the death and that be good enough? The answer is no because He was determined to suffer for our sin. Isaiah 53 says, “He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the chastening for our peace fell upon Him, and by His scourging we are healed.”

Christ had to suffer because our sin has caused great suffering. We have harmed ourselves and those around us with our thoughts, our words, and our actions. Christ did not do any sin. He never did anything wrong. He never harmed anyone. It wasn’t His sin that put Him on the cross, and therefore it wasn’t His pain to bear. But in His great love, He claimed it. He stood in our place. And when therefore, they offered Him wine, He refused.   

Finally, I want to underline what the text says: they crucified Jesus with two robbers, one on his right and one on his left. Jesus, the Son of God, the Righteous One, died with criminals on either side. In another account, one of the robbers starts mocking Jesus, and the other rebukes him, saying that they are receiving the punishment that they deserve, but Jesus did not deserve to be there. Then that criminal asked Jesus to remember him, and Jesus said, today you will be with me in Paradise. In that moment, you have a picture of the whole mission of Jesus, the reason why He came, why He lived, and why He died. 

In a sense, this whole world has become the place of a skull. Because of Adam’s sin and because of all of our sin, the world is full of suffering and sadness. But God promised that one of Eve’s descendants would come and break that curse. And so He did. He came and died the death that every sinner deserves. And so He crushed the serpent’s head. He crushed the Accusers head. This is the power of the Devil: accusation. He brings the list of our sins and all the harm we have done. Most people try to plug their ears and pretend they can’t hear. They try to ignore the guilt and shame and regret, and they use everything they can find to dull the pain: movies, sex, alcohol, drugs, but the guilt is always there in the morning. The accusations are still there. But Jesus died on Calvary without any pain killers so that we might be free from every accusation. He stood with us, criminals all, so that we might be with Him in Paradise. 

Bob knew this Jesus. Bob wrote in one of his letters to the church: “There were times I wanted to just stop and cry. Then I remembered how much Jesus suffered on the Cross for me. He loves me enough to do that. Which means that I need to love Him enough that I trust Him on this journey I’m on. Sure, things may be rough now, but He’s leading me somewhere good. Instead of tears I need an attitude of obedience. This is where I’m supposed to be.”

So as we honor our brother Bob today, I do not doubt that he would want to say something similar to all of us even now. There are hard times, and it can be tempting to just give up and cry. But remember Jesus who suffered on the cross for you. He loved you enough to do that for you. How can you be indifferent to that? So let me ask you: what will you do with that? What will you do with that great love? Bob would say: Trust Him, follow Him, and obey Him. 

I think it’s a pretty wonderful testimony that even while Bob endured significant pain and agony in his final months, the very last message he sent out to the whole church closed by asking people to thank God for the hospice woman who was coordinating visits for him. His last thought that he shared with his church family was, “Please say a prayer thanking God for her.” 

In some ways, you might look at Bob’s short life and the suffering at the end of it as just sad. But Bob had more freedom than many enjoy over the course of 80 or 90 years. How do I know that? Because at the end of his life he was full of gratitude. He was thanking God for his hospice nurse, and he was telling everyone around him to do the same. 

You see, when you are bound by sin and death, all you can think about is yourself. You’re self-seeking, self-obsessed, turned inward on yourself, full of bitterness and complaining. But when you are set free by Christ, when you are healed of your sin by His suffering, you are set free to see how good God is, how kind He is, and to see His blessings everywhere. Gratitude fills everything. And that is real freedom. 

In one of Bob’s notes to the church, he made mention of one of my books that he was reading, and while he admitted that I hadn’t paid him to endorse it, he said he wouldn’t complain if I visited him and brought “a box of orange creamsicle ice cream bars.” I didn’t get a chance to bring him those ice cream bars, but I trust that he’s enjoying something far better now. And at the last day: resurrection and life forever more.  

In the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Amen. 

Photo by Waldemar Brandt on Unsplash

Mightier Weapons

We are at war. But we do not wage this war with the weapons of the flesh. We wage this war with the mightier weapons of the Spirit. These are not fake weapons. They are real, and they have been conquering men and women since the advent of sin and evil in the world. What are these weapons? They are the weapons of kindness, mercy, truth, generosity, forgiveness, and above all else, the Word of God and prayer. 

So let me ask you: Where is the battle front that you are called to this week? Chances are good that there are several. Is there a particularly difficult area of life right now? Is it health related? Work related? School related? Is there a member of your family who is not walking with God? Is there some relative or member of your family where there is a strained, broken fellowship? Is there a neighbor or co-worker or roommate who is really difficult for you to deal with? You are called to wage war against all sin and unbelief, beginning with your own sin, your own attitude, but also with an eye toward the salvation and restoration of your relative, neighbor, or coworker. 

There are some really hard cases, chronic health problems and hard hearts that just don’t seem to budge, and our job is to be faithful on our side even if we do not see resolution or salvation in this life. But nevertheless we are called to the patience and persistence of the widow seeking justice. As often as this trouble comes to mind, as often as we encounter the pain, the unresolved situation, lift it up to the Lord. Knock again. Seek again. Ask for their salvation, ask for full resolution, ask for complete restoration, and ask for joy and grace and wisdom for it all. 

Remember: it was the kindness of God that led you to repentance, and it will be the kindness of God that conquers the world.

Photo by Frankie Lu on Unsplash

Jesus in a Dark Alley

Western civilization as we know it is crumbling, falling in big chunks all around us. The confusions and abominations are growing steadily and increasing rapidly. Meanwhile, there are piles of churches, especially in America, and millions of professing Christians, and yet apparently we are not salt and light. Apparently, we are powerless. We are chased by our enemies. We are fearful of the giants in the land. Which leads me to believe that we are mostly a bunch of Pharisees and scribes and hypocrites. We need a major reformation: we need lots of Christians to become Christians. We need lots of clean-cut, churchgoing folks to meet Jesus in a dark alley and have Him rough them up.

— Blood-Bought World, x-xi.

Photo by Morica Pham on Unsplash

Preparing for Hardship

This meal teaches us how to prepare for hardship. Recent years have seen unprecedented loss of freedoms in this land. From the increasing socialization of medicine and education and the economy to emergency orders, shut downs, and now medical mandates. Many people wonder what comes next. Many people who lived through the early 20th century will tell you that all of this seems eerily familiar. Totalitarianism is the politicization of everything – everything is in principle under the State. 

And the obvious question that arises is: What should we do? What should we do to prepare? What should we do to resist? The Christian faith was made for these moments. It was made for times like this. How? Well, the first Christians lived in the Roman Empire, where pagan notions of freedom and justice reigned. And in just over 300 years, the empire was beginning to profess faith in Christ. How did that happen? It happened by Christians simply living as Christians. They gathered for worship faithfully, even when it was illegal. They were honest in their business dealings, and they worked hard to provide for their own families as well as any in the church who were hard up. They confessed their sins and forgave one another quickly. They kept their marriage vows, and they earnestly taught their children the faith. They were ready to do good and show mercy to all, to the sick and elderly, even their enemies. 

But above all, they were ready to die for the faith, ready to lose anything and everything for the sake of Christ. Why? Because of the love of Christ proclaimed here at this table. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that God loved us and sent His Son for us. How can you prepare for what’s coming? Grow in this love. Meditate on this love. While were still enemies, Christ died for us. This love worships. This love works. This love forgives. This love dies. And this love can never die.  

So come and welcome to Jesus Christ.

Photo by Gene Gallin on Unsplash

New Church Plant

Most of you have heard by now that the elders have determined to plant Christ Church Downtown as a new church in the coming months. This is both exciting and daunting. And so I want to give two brief exhortations related to this.

First, we want to think about this the way God wants us to. Our hearts can be slippery and deceitful things. You may be tempted to pride, to begin comparing in an unhealthy way our people, our service, our worship, our community to the main service or Trinity or some other church in town or even another one far away. Or you may be tempted to fear or anxiety. What if this goes badly? What if we mess it up? What if it isn’t a good launch? Grab hold of your heart and do what you just said you have done. Lift up it up to the Lord. And hold it there. We are just people, but we serve a great God. We have nothing in ourselves, but we have everything in Christ. 

Second, you might wonder: What does this mean for us? What will our goals be? What is our mission? And of course, we will discuss this more in the coming months. But the central things will not be changing. The central thing we do is worship the Triune God. This is the call to worship every Lord’s Day, and it is the rallying cry of the Church Universal. What are we here for? To worship the Triune God. Why do work every day? For the Triune God. Why do we repent of our sins and forgive one another quickly? Because the Father sent the Son to die for our sins and rise from the dead, and the Spirit of the Father and the Son has been sent into our hearts and now we are new creatures. 

There will be a number of new and exciting things coming up for CCD: information meetings, Heads of Household meetings, Bible studies, and so on. But keep these two things at the center: Keep your hearts lifted up to the Lord and keep worshiping the Triune God. 

Photo by John Cafazza on Unsplash

Bari Weiss & the Traditional Woke Fly in Her Soup

Introduction
When you live in the land of zombies, every sound of sanity brings hope. So when Bari Weiss came out swinging last week, you could hear the collective sigh of relief. We’re not alone! We’re not crazy! Bari wrote an article in Commentary Magazine entitled, “We Got Here Because of Cowardice. We Get Out With Courage: Say No to the Woke Revolution.” Ms. Weiss could have tweeted just that and the crowds would have roared. But the whole article was packed with unusual amounts of common sense:

A lot of people want to convince you that you need a Ph.D. or a law degree or dozens of hours of free time to read dense texts about critical theory to understand the woke movement and its worldview. You do not. You simply need to believe your own eyes and ears. 

Let me offer the briefest overview of the core beliefs of the Woke Revolution, which are abundantly clear to anyone willing to look past the hashtags and the jargon…

…In this ideology, speech is violence. But violence, when carried out by the right people in pursuit of a just cause, is not violence at all. In this ideology, bullying is wrong, unless you are bullying the right people, in which case it’s very, very good. In this ideology, education is not about teaching people how to think, it’s about reeducating them in what to think. In this ideology, the need to feel safe trumps the need to speak truthfully…

How did we get here? There are a lot of factors that are relevant to the answer…  

But there is one word we should linger on, because every moment of radical victory turned on it. The word is cowardice.

The revolution has been met with almost no resistance by those who have the title CEO or leader or president or principal in front of their names. The refusal of the adults in the room to speak the truth, their refusal to say no to efforts to undermine the mission of their institutions, their fear of being called a bad name and that fear trumping their responsibility—that is how we got here.

Around the same time, Ms. Weiss went on CNN and went toe to toe with Brian Stelter on how the world has gone mad:

When @BariWeiss describes the kind of madness that we have all witnessed, @BrianStelter pretends as if he doesn’t know what she’s talking about. Such gaslighting is of course a big part of the problem. | pic.twitter.com/q5JZlTl7K1

— Mike (@Doranimated) October 18, 2021

And there is of course so much to commend. I am grateful for such barrel proof truth on CNN. I’m grateful for the call for courage. I’m thankful for the calling out of the CEOs, presidents, all the “adults in the room.”

An Honest Assessment?
The problem of course is that we cannot stop there. We cannot merely denounce cowardice and call out to courage to save us. We must actually put cowardice to death and put on courage. And we must not merely put courage on, but we must allow that courage to take us all the way into the heat of the battle, which will require a good deal of repentance. And to be clear, Weiss acknowledges this:

“This bravery isn’t the last or only step in opposing this revolution—it’s just the first. After that must come honest assessments of why America was vulnerable to start with, and an aggressive commitment to rebuilding the economy and society in ways that once again offer life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness to the greatest number of Americans.

But let’s start with a little courage.

Courage means, first off, the unqualified rejection of lies. Do not speak untruths, either about yourself or anyone else, no matter the comfort offered by the mob. And do not genially accept the lies told to you. If possible, be vocal in rejecting claims you know to be false. Courage can be contagious, and your example may serve as a means of transmission.”

Weiss goes on to give a list of her own suggestions of where to throw down with current lies being circulated. She also cites a number of examples of folks being courageous, telling the truth, and refusing to crumble under the weight of outrage.

A Fly in the Soup
But there’s a fly in the soup. And it’s not a little one. It’s a fat hairy one doing a frantic backstroke. Bari Weiss is a lesbian. She has embraced the delusion that she is married to another woman. Now don’t misunderstand me. This doesn’t mean that she cannot see and say true things. I commend her article to you. It is full of lots of refreshing truth. And I truly hope that this courage Ms. Weiss speaks of, this honest assessment of how we got here will include her full repentance. I pray that God sends courageous, faithful Christians into her life who will love her in truth, and that her words will become truer over the next number of months and years.

But in the meantime, part of the exuberance for Ms. Weiss’s diatribe is the fact that she is one of the high priestesses of the Woke Religion. She is a Woke reformer, a critic, and a voice crying in the wilderness, if you will. She professes the Jewish religion, but she practices Traditional Wokism. Traditional Wokism, mind you, is not as radical as the modern, progressive version. Here’s her helpful explanation of Wokeness:

It begins by stipulating that the forces of justice and progress are in a war against backwardness and tyranny. And in a war, the normal rules of the game must be suspended. Indeed, this ideology would argue that those rules are not just obstacles to justice, but tools of oppression. They are the master’s tools.  And the master’s tools cannot dismantle the master’s house.

So the tools themselves are not just replaced but repudiated. And in so doing, persuasion—the purpose of argument—is replaced with public shaming. Moral complexity is replaced with moral certainty. Facts are replaced with feelings.

How is it that Ms. Weiss arrived at the conclusion she, a woman made in the image of God, could “marry” another woman, made in the image of God? It was (in various ways) by stipulating that the normal rules of the game needed to be suspended, that normal rules of morality and justice were tools of slavery and oppression. While she would no doubt hide herself in “moral complexity,” the fact is that the entire homosexual movement is the replacement of facts with feelings.

God created us male and female, and He gave us clear sexual assignments in the world and created the institution of marriage. And rebellious people shook their fists at God and said that they could be whatever they wanted, however they wanted, and marriage could be whatever they wanted. Why? Not because of facts, but because of feelings. The facts contradict every form of sexual rebellion. The facts condemn heterosexual sin, homosexual sin, transsexual sin, bestiality, pedophilia, necrophilia, and whatever the next stripe of sexual wahooey happens to be. The facts contradict it all. They contradict it with STDs, shorter life expectancy, confusion, depression, anxiety, suicide, guilt, shame, and utter fruitlessness.

So you cannot get out of this mess with a slightly more conservative form of wokism. You cannot say that you only want a little bit of “revolution.” That’s like going back to Playboy magazines in the garage. That’s like going back to Jim Crow laws. That’s like saying, we only want to destroy two corners of the cathedral of Western Civilization — not the whole thing. But that isn’t possible. And while this will of course get spun as “radical right” extremism, it actually goes back to the beginning of Genesis. Weiss even noted in her interview with Brian Stelter that when someone cannot say out loud that there are differences between men and women without being cancelled, the world has gone mad.

Yes, but it is not merely saying it out loud, it is believing it. It is obeying those sexual assignments embedded in the world. You can no more build civilization on homosexuality than you can build a suspension bridge denying the reality of math. Aggressively rebuild the economy, Ms. Weiss? That would require having children.

If Darwin is Right, Serve Him
The last thing I’ll say is that the greatest blame for all of this lies at the feet of Christians who know better. We are the ones who became embarrassed of Genesis 1-2. We are the ones sputtering and making excuses for the age of the universe, six days of creation, and Noah’s flood. But this is why every syllable of the creation narrative matters: Does male and female matter? Does heterosexuality really matter? Does being made in the image of God matter?

You simply do not get to pick and choose. You do not get to say that this verse is *merely* poetry and symbolic because it doesn’t make sense to my modern sensibilities, but this verse is historic and dogmatic. Yes, there is poetry in Scripture, as well as apocalyptic literature and parables. But we do not get to choose our own adventure. That is the Woke Revolution, and it’s as old as the talking serpent in the Garden: Did God really say?

You cannot appeal to common sense or reason or science. Those are the idols that got us here. We are now at Woke Model 13, but Darwin and Marx and Nietzsche and Rousseau were just the earlier models of Wokeness. You cannot split the difference. If there is a God, we must worship Him. If there isn’t, then shut the Hell up.

So the foundation of our repentance, the thing that really must be undone before we will make any headway, any real progress against the Woke Revolution is a thoroughgoing recommitment to the doctrine of Creation. It is there where the madness begins:

“For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools… Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so their bodies would be dishonored among them… For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural…” (Rom. 1:20-22, 24, 26)

So let me add to what Ms. Weiss said on CNN: When you think this mind-blowingly beautiful universe accidentally evolved over billions of years and people are descended from monkeys, the world has gone mad. When you think two women can get married, the world has gone mad. When you send your women into battle, the world has gone mad.

If Darwin was right, then I’m afraid there’s no reason why Darwin can’t trump these white patriarchal notions of truth that Bari Weiss wants to cling to. If Darwin was right then the Woke Revolutionaries are being consistent, and Bari Weiss is a racist bigot (by their definition). If we got here by survival of the fittest, there’s no good reason to protest against the woke jihad since, they’re just trying to survive, conquer, rape, and pillage exactly as their ancestors have done for billions of years. Where do you get these benighted notions of equality and dignity and justice, Ms. Weiss, when we all descended from mindless pondscum? There’s no dignity or justice if we are just a cosmic accident. 

Conclusion
God has given us over to our madness. But Christ is not far off. The truth has not left. We cannot turn back to Christ while clinging to our idols, but if we turn to Christ, we can be free from our idols. Our idols will not have power over us anymore. Our idols will stop abusing us. Our idols only have the power we give to them in our drooling insanity. And that is the source of all our cowardice. We are afraid of our idols. But there is really only one kind of courage, and it is the courage of Christ, the courage of His cross where all our madness, all our rebellion, all our sin went to die. But there is no middle ground. You cannot have Christ take half your madness and keep the other half. That will still leave you in your sins and afraid of what your idols will do. But if we surrender completely to Christ, and lay everything down, He will give us courage, and all these nightmares will fade away.

The Christian Basis for Freedom

Introduction
Freedom is a thoroughly Christian principle. The ancient pagan world knew nothing of true freedom, and despite secular humanism’s attempts at claiming it, there is no other liberty apart from the living God. Christian liberty is grounded in freedom to worship the Triune God, and when our hearts are turned to Him, we are set free from all bondage and set free to serve. 

The Texts: “It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery… For you were called to freedom brethren; only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word, in the statement, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’” (Gal. 5:1, 13-14).

Summary of the Text: In context, Paul is warning the Galatians against Judaizing, that is, adding Jewish ceremonial laws to Christ perhaps as an attempt to feel more secure, perhaps as an attempt to avoid persecution from zealous Jews (Gal. 5:2-11, cf. Gal. 1:4-9).  But Christ is all. We worship Christ alone because Christ alone set us free. And every form of legalism is a crushing yoke of slavery – it is completely incompatible with Christ, and to return to Egypt is to sin against Christ who set us free (Gal. 5:1). The mentality of slavery is simple: just do as you’re told (legalism), but true freedom brings responsibility (Gal. 5:13). We’re not antinomian. Freedom looks at the need and determines how to best meet it. This means that true liberty is directed by God’s law of love (Gal. 3:14).

Freedom for Worship
In the Exodus story, one of the fundamental lessons we learn there is that freedom is for worship: “Let My people go that they may celebrate a feast to Me in the wilderness” (Ex. 5:1, cf. 10:25). But Pharaoh instinctively knew that if Israel was set free to worship God, they would never be slaves again. True worship of the living God sets the captives free. This certainly begins as moral and spiritual freedom with regeneration (and hearts that can’t stop singing), but freedom from sin teaches men to think like free men. This begins with personal responsibility (confession of sin and forgiveness). This is the dignity of guilt. Are we moral agents or are we just victims? This personal responsibility flows out to various covenantal responsibilities in the spheres of authority assigned to us by the Lord Jesus: family, church, and state.

When they are healthy, all three spheres mutually check and enforce one another, but throughout Scripture worship is the tip of the spear: Abraham built altars throughout the land of Canaan, the priests blew trumpets and carried the ark around Jericho, the choir went out in front of the army under Jehoshaphat, and Jesus sent us out into the world to preach and baptize and celebrate the Lord’s Supper as the vanguard of the Kingdom. Daniel shows us the centrality of free worship both in the refusal of the three friends to bow down to the statue (Dan. 3) and in Daniel’s resolute prayer despite the king’s decree (Dan. 6). Christians are free from every decree of man that would require idolatry or prohibit the worship of the living God.

While there is freedom in some of the particulars of when and where worship is conducted, Christians must be zealous for freedom to worship for two reasons: but there’s a primary reason and secondary. The primary reason is because Christ is worthy. Worship is the primary thing because Christ is the primary thing. But we must not miss the fact that the Christ offers us the secondary reason as well: because all of our other freedoms flow from there. Christ is not ashamed to say: do you want to be free? Do you want the government off your back? Do you want to live like true human beings? Then come to me. Come to Christ. When you think about preserving freedom, the first thing you think about must be worshipping the King who grants all freedom. 

Freed to Serve
This freedom that Christ gives is for serving one another in love, and that love is measured by the second greatest commandment: love your neighbor as yourself (Gal. 5:13-14). But Christians must not be simplistic or naïve in this. And perhaps you already slightly grimaced when I said “serve one another in love,” because you are starting to get used to being beaten over the head with that kind of language. It is often in our modern day followed by, ‘so therefore do whatever I tell you.’ So we need to define our terms carefully. Remember first of all the gospel: “In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another” (1 Jn. 4:10-11). God did not love us in the way that we thought He should; He loved us in the way that we actually needed. And we must love one another like that. This is truly serving one another in love: doing what is needed for long term physical and spiritual health, blessing, and success. This is our standard of love, and it is built directly on our standard for truth. 

How does Scripture teach us to love like Christ? It says husbands are to love their wives as their own bodies, like Christ has loved the church and gave Himself up for her, providing for them and protecting them (Eph. 5:22-33), and fathers are to provide for and raise their children in the nurture and admonition of Jesus (Eph. 6:1-4). This includes the duty to care for the health, safety, medical decisions, welfare, and education of all in the family. Failure to do so is functional apostasy and worse than a run of the mill pagan (1 Tim. 5:8). It is not the duty of the state, the federal government, the CDC, the FDA, or any other government. This spiritual and religious duty to care for your family is why Christ set you free. This is what your Christian freedom is for. And you are under orders not to relinquish this freedom. Wise men will need to consider various tactical courses to protect this freedom but protect it we must. 

Conclusions   
One of the ways our freedom is under attack is through well-meaning appeals from other Christians that we need to be willing to lay our freedoms down for the sake of the gospel. They say things like: Don’t be selfish! Be willing to give up your rights for Christ! This is one of those half-truths that can sound more godly than it actually is. The half truth is: do not use your freedom for the flesh, to serve yourself, to serve your lusts, to bite and devour one another (Gal. 5:13-15). Don’t use your freedom to act like Egyptians.

But keep the image of the Exodus firmly in mind. Christian liberty is fundamentally freedom from Egypt (sin, death, the Devil) and it is freedom to love our people in obedience to Christ. Therefore, no Christian is free to go back to Egypt. Lay our freedom down? That’s like saying that you should be willing to go back to Egypt in order to get out of Egypt. That’s crazy talk. That’s like saying lay your obedience down, lay your duty down, lay your family down. God forbid. Christ has set us free to lay our lives down, but we must lay them down in obedience to Him. It certainly is true that sometimes obedience to Christ requires us to leave father, mother, children behind, but that is only when they are demanding that we stay in Egypt. 

For another example, when drag queen story hour first burst on the scene in all of its lugubrious shame, some of our most prominent conservative, even “Reformed” leaders told us that this was merely the price of “freedom” in a country like ours. If we want to continue to have the freedom of speech, the freedom to express our religious convictions then we have to make room for gaudy perverts. Notice the hidden unbiblical assumption here is that “freedom” is merely power of choice. But that is like saying that in order to be a truly free country you must allow for the option of slavery. But just try saying that out loud. If someone said that, there would be people shrieking in the streets. Not hardly. This is because freedom is not merely power of choice. It is power of choice within God’s Word. It is doing what is best, what is most needful within the constraints of God’s Word.

For most of the history of this country flamboyant obscenity would have been illegal. Because it it’s freedom. It’s actually slavery. True freedom is walking in the light of Christ, walking in the relief of forgiveness of all our sins, and using that freedom to do good. No, the price of freedom was paid by Jesus on the cross, and He died to set us free from all that darkness. He died for porn-makers and porn users. He died for drag queens and homosexuals. He died for cross-dressers and the effeminate. He died for adulterers and the bitter. He died for rage and hate and lust and shame. He died for it, He paid for it, so that we might walk away from it. When He died those sins died in Him, and when He walked out of the grave, they were gone. Your sins were gone.  

His word is our freedom, and loving your neighbor means doing all in your power to share that freedom with them. 

Because He died for our sins, we sing at the top of lungs. And because we are free like that, we cannot go back into slavery. We have been set free to serve, to love – the way we have been loved—which is doing what is actually good and needful. We will not give that up willingly, but in fact, we cannot give it up. We can no more give up our freedom than our sins can come back out of the grave.  

Photo by Gayatri Malhotra on Unsplash

A Case for Religious Exemption

Introduction
You may know that my denomination has put out a statement on the religious foundations for medical exemptions. The early returns are quite encouraging; many report successful requests for exemption. There have been a few rejections, but it seems that the majority are being approved. At the same time, a number of reasonable questions and concerns have arisen regarding the basis for requesting religious exemptions. It’s one thing to object on constitutional or medical grounds, but is it proper for Christians to object on religious grounds? This is not a direct reply to anyone, but a general defense of my denomination’s statement and using religious exemptions in general against vaccine mandates.

Is a sincerely held belief that the vaccines were rolled out in medically dubious or irresponsible ways a “religious objection?” Is the sincerely held belief that mandating any kind of health care is immoral and unbiblical count as a legitimate “religious objection?” And if we press our Vantillian sword to the corners and insist that there is no moral neutrality anywhere in the universe, have we thereby turned every sincere conviction into a “religious” one, one that is so inherent to our Christian religion that every true Christian must have the exact same conviction or else be considered unfaithful? On the other hand, if a religious exemption request is denied and a conscientious Christian determines to comply with the mandate and get the vaccine, has he or she essentially undermined their religious exemption request?

Defining Our Terms
Part of the challenge with these questions is that some of the discussions on these matters assume a definition of “religious objection,” rather than defining, explaining, and defending the definition carefully. For example, is a legitimate “religious objection” only registered when an individual believes that compliance will necessarily cause them to sin? I agree that such a situation certainly qualifies as a legitimate religious objection and that it is the strongest objection, but is it the only legitimate ground?

The concern is that elevating a deeply held personal opinion to the level of “article of faith” opens the door to at least two possible problems: either binding Christian consciences’ by one man’s personal conviction, or effectively reducing central articles of faith to the level of “strongly held personal opinions.” In one scenario, you might end up prosecuting Christians for drinking wine in moderation, and in the other scenario, you might fail to prosecute Christians for denying the Trinity because, after all, they have “strongly held personal opinions.” I want to state my unequivocal agreement with this concern. We must not allow that to happen. 

However, the only sure way to avoid those scenarios is complete fidelity to Scripture. So let us agree that Scripture teaches that the highest, purest, clearest religious objection to any commandment of men is that God expressly forbids it (e.g. worshiping other gods, bowing down to statues, participating in murder, etc.) or that God expressly commands what a commandment of men forbids (e.g. gathering for worship, praying to the Triune God, providing a thoroughly Christian education for your children, etc.). The book of Daniel makes this clear. We must not bow down to the statue when it is commanded by the king, and we must not cease from praying when it is forbidden by the king. “Whether it is right in the sight of God to give heed to you rather than to God, you be the judge; for we cannot stop speaking about what we have seen and heard” (Acts 4:19-20).

Secondly, and below that, but still significant, would be the scenarios where there is some disagreement but which an individual is convinced that for them personally, some action would be sinful. Paul covers this in Romans 14, and he expressly teaches that even though there may be differences in conscience over holy days, unclean food, or drinking wine, Christians should not cause one another to sin against their conscience. On the one hand, those who believe they are free in these areas are admonished not to cause their brothers to stumble, and on the other hand, we really must recognize the danger already present in this scenario that those who have scruples with wine (for example) will elevate their personal conviction to the level of an article of faith.

With regard to the vaccine mandates, I would put the use of aborted fetal cells here. There is a strong argument to be made that it would be sinning to participate knowingly in the development and testing of these vaccines on aborted baby cell lines. Those who are convinced of this believe that this falls into the first category: they believe they are being commanded by the government to participate in or at least in some measure condone or support the murder of the unborn, regardless of how many generations of cell lines removed from the original. Nevertheless, the case is not so clear and airtight to me to justify bringing charges against brothers and sisters who think or believe differently. Clearly those who view holy days, food, or wine differently cannot bind one another’s consciences, and that would include not bringing one another up on charges of sin. Here you already have some measure of protection both for differing convictions and therefore also against elevating different convictions to an article of faith.

Where The Rub Comes
My third tier for legitimate religious objection/exemption to mandates is when someone else is manifestly sinning against us. Scripture is clear that when others sin against us, varying degrees of compliance and resistance are acceptable. Joyful submission of slaves to harsh masters and gracious submission of wives to disobedient husbands would fall into this category (cf. 1 Pet. 2-3). Arguably, even here, there is a subtext of resistance, of overcoming evil with good (Rom. 12:21). But even if that were not the case, there are other clear texts that invite varying responses: Abigail was a wise and godly woman when she went behind her husband’s back (1 Sam. 25), and slaves are not ungodly for seeking their freedom (1 Cor. 7:21). So related to this would be the general exhortation to obey civil authorities (Rom. 13, 1 Pet. 2) with many examples of submitting to unjust treatment (Israel in Egypt, Paul and Christ submitting to arrests), alongside the examples of godly civil disobedience: Ehud assassinating Eglon, Gideon evading taxes, David and Paul evading capture, and Rahab and the Hebrew midwives lying their heads off to their kings.

In other words, we see multiple examples of other people sinning against God’s people, and they in turn have the freedom to submit and endure that or resist, object, or appeal it. And the question here for our purposes is whether or when that objection or appeal may be made expressly as a “religious” appeal.

Jesus actually speaks to this question: “‘What do you think, Simon? From whom do the kings of the earth collect customs or poll-tax, from their sons or from strangers?’ When Peter said, ‘From strangers,’ Jesus said to him, ‘Then the sons are exempt. However, so that we do not offend them, go to the sea and throw in a hook, and take the first fish that comes up; and when you open its mouth, you will find a shekel. Take that and give it to them for you and Me’” (Mt. 17:25-27). 

Jesus says that His disciples are “exempt” from paying unjust taxes, taxes levied on conquered slaves. And Jesus expressly grants this exemption to those who are “sons.” Jesus says that His disciples do not owe this tax (it would not technically be a sin to evade it) because in fact they are “sons” (of God, presumably), but He says that it would be tactically unwise and unhelpfully offensive to resist at this point (and could therefore be a sin on other grounds).

Elsewhere, Jesus teaches that some taxes are due to Caesar, but He famously relativizes that authority: what bears God’s image must be rendered to God (Mk. 12:17). This is none other than an appeal to jurisdictions. People bear God’s image and therefore belong to God, and God in His wisdom assigns specific and limited jurisdictions to which His people rightly submit.

These jurisdictions are not merely deeply held personal convictions. They are objective moral (religious) absolutes, reflecting the image of the Triune God. But notice that there is religious freedom to submit to or resist jurisdictional overreach, depending on particulars. The authorities exceeding their God-given authority are always sinning, and God’s people are therefore always free to appeal that jurisdictional overreach on religious grounds, on the basis that Jesus Christ is Lord of all, and we are sons of God through faith in His name. But depending on the context, likely outcome, and various tactical details, Christians have the religious freedom to submit to sinful overreach (appealing to God for justice) or they may appeal directly for justice. This justice would ideally be available for all, but a religious exemption is a legitimate stop-gap measure.

An Example
For example, God expressly commands Christian fathers to bring children up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord (Eph. 6:4). This is a biblical standard going all the way back to the Mosaic law, wherein parents were charged to teach their children to love God with all that they are, all day long (Dt. 6:4-9). This task of enculturation was both spiritual and physical, moral and vocational. In fact, one of the words Paul uses is paidea, which was often translated “culture.”

Therefore, if a mandate came down from Resident Biden that because of “health concerns” and the “common good” all K-12 students must attend one of the government-approved education centers (it’s for your safety, after all), I would urge everyone to object strenuously and on religious grounds. What religious grounds? Ephesians 6, Deuteronomy 6, and Mark 12 for that matter — our children bear God’s image and therefore they are not to be rendered unto Caesar. And this religious objection is not in any way delegitimized by the fact that somebody in Bullrush, Kansas may have the freedom to comply with the mandate because in their little town of 15, everybody at the government school attends Bullrush Christian Church.

It could rightly be pointed out that the Christian religion has not suffered in its essence by a government school mandate. There’s nothing in the Apostles’ Creed about government schools after all. Christ is still Lord, and if we have been faithful, resisting as much as possible, then even in all these things we will be more than conquerors (Rom. 8). It has been said that the Christian religion is antifragile, and so it is. Nevertheless, it is unhelpful and sub-Biblical to relegate this objection to having children forced to attend government schools to merely a “strongly held personal opinion.” No, the parents that object are objecting on strong Christian grounds, going all the way back to Deuteronomy 6.   

It is no stretch at all to apply the same principles to the life, health, safety, and medical care that parents are required to provide for their children. We are not Gnostics. While we admit that Darwinism has been a far more virulent virus than COVID-19, and Statism has far more lethal side effects than anything on the VAERS site, we are nevertheless required by God to do all that we can to preserve the life and health of our neighbors, especially those under our care, those that we are responsible for (Ex. 20:13, Eph. 5:28-29). To fail to provide for our own is to be functionally apostate and worse than an unbeliever (1 Tim. 5:8).

It is true that we must not elevate a private, personal decision to continue or discontinue cancer treatment to the level of article of faith. We must not elevate a private, personal decision to homeschool or use a local private, Christian school to the level of article of faith. But those subjective, personal applications are responses to immoveable, objective religious standards that *are* articles of faith. The fifth and sixth commandments are not extraneous matters of personal opinion. They are binding on all at all times, and when some authority is sinning against these commandments (or others), those being sinned against have the freedom to submit, resist, and/or appeal on thoroughly religious grounds.

Paul describes another element of this religious liberty in Galatians: “It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery… For you were called to freedom, brethren, only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another” (Gal. 5:1, 13). 

Here, we are taught that Christian liberty is freedom to serve others in obedience to Christ. Christian liberty is for husbands and fathers providing for and protecting their families. And for Christian men to give up that liberty easily is for them to fail in their religious duty to God. Christian men may stand on explicitly Christian principles when they resist statist overreach. They may make different decisions in the particulars, but they are not free to abandon their responsibility. They are religiously exempt from government mandates because their religion requires them to be the first line of defense in protecting the life and health of their families, not the state, not the FDA, not the CDC. And as Jesus said, they are exempt, and yet, depending on many particulars, may legitimately make different decisions,

So when a relatively Christian government begins treating you like a conquered slave, Paul says that we should not go easily back into bondage, whether the bondage of Judaizing or the bondage of any other form of legalism, including every form of statism. Of course, if we find ourselves enslaved in Egypt, we ought to be faithful there until God raises up a new Moses. The Christian faith is antifragile. We will only grow stronger. We will be more than conquerors. We are to suffer cheerfully. But it is not faithfulness to surrender our responsibilities casually. 

A PostMillennial Thought Experiment
Let me close with an analogy I used with a friend: I can imagine some very different world in a postmillennial future where the Kingdom has come a lot more, and some plague hits a land, and it really is something closer to the bubonic plague. But let’s say it’s not quite that bad. In other words, it’s a lot more deadly than Covid, but it definitely falls on the line. I can imagine having a straight up honest disagreement over a vaccine/quarantine mandate but agreeing that in this case it is not a religious liberty matter (given all the particulars of the context). Everyone confesses that Jesus is Lord, congress is debating the matter with Bibles out and open, and all of them are faithfully married, church members, with faithful kids and grandkids. In that scenario, I would grant that the disagreement is a wisdom call that does not directly impinge on religious liberty. Both sides of the debate would be genuinely trying to obey Christ, even if honestly disagreeing over the particulars.

But in our current situation, the vax mandates are most certainly a religious liberty matter because of the context: mass government shut downs for a flu-like virus, mass media corruption, censorship, cancel culture, arrests for psalm singing, fines for holding worship services, mask mandates, and all of that with a backdrop of doubling down on abortion, sodomy, fiscal insanity, woke-pharisaism, sexual anarchy, and drunken socialism shoved down our throats. When Baron Bomburst sends out the Child Catcher in his black hat and carriage offering everyone candy, do not begin explaining to me the moral-philosophical nuances of sweet treats. This is not a polite debate between honest Christians; this is a collision of entirely different religions.

This is because if western civilization is a plane, the engines run on the jet fuel of Christian faith. If the decisions being made are a matter of 2 degrees to the west or 3 degrees to the north, I would be willing to grant that we are not debating religious liberty directly. This is because no one is openly considering rejecting the Christian faith. But when the leaders begin to nose the plane of our civilization down toward the ocean, giving every indication that they intend to crash it into the sea, they are impinging on religious liberty. And if the stewardess comes down the aisle insisting that everyone put on their snorkel masks (work with me here), that mandate most definitely is part of the overall plan to crash the plane. And so it should be resisted on moral, religious grounds, not merely a difference of opinion on politics, medicine, or tactics.

Of course, if the terrorists in the cockpit succeed in crashing our plane, Jesus is still King. They cannot impinge upon His sovereign reign. But it most certainly has impinged upon our practice of our religion in earthly history where we have been commanded to disciple the nations, protect and provide for our families, and worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness. Of course the gospel will still go forth under the blessing of God, even under persecution, as it has many times before. We serve the One who knows the way out of every grave. But we are not allowed to retreat from our duties and call that faithfulness.

Conclusion
To those who insist that religious exemptions may only be granted for those things that would clearly require an individual to sin, my concern is that you may not see the ditch on the other side of the road. Yes, we do not want to elevate personal opinions to articles of faith, but we also must have the ability to recognize and resist new manifestations of idolatry. In the early church it was a pinch of incense for the emperor. There’s no verse in the Bible that says thou shalt not offer a pinch of incense to the emperor, and to the contrary, there are several passages that speak about giving honor to kings and emperors. While we have the clear scenarios found in Daniel, the tests rarely come in such obvious ways.

Paul said that receiving circumcision was a false gospel (Gal. 1) and returning to the ceremonial codes was going back to false gods (Gal. 4:8-10), and all of it was returning to bondage and slavery (Gal. 5:1). And he refused to have Titus circumcised despite all the pressure of the Jewish Christians (Gal. 2). And then he had the audacity to go right ahead and circumcise Timothy anyway (Acts 16:3). Was it a sin to get circumcised? It would seem that in many instances it was, but not always. It was certainly sinful to mandate circumcision. Surely Paul would have been in favor of religious exemptions to Jewish circumcision mandates, and yet, on occasion, Paul would recommend going through with it and not to worry about it, while still resisting the broader Judaizing regime at the top of his lungs.

This seems to me to be where we are with vaccine mandates. The broader project is a false gospel of statism and turning back to a whole host of false gods. The mandates should be resisted in every possible way, including with the use of religious exemption requests, even if the decision to vax is ultimately a matter of personal freedom and wisdom.

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The Divine Art of Not Caring

Part of growing in Christian wisdom and grace is learning the divine art of not caring. A great deal of folly and destruction results from caring about all the wrong things and in the process, completely missing the most important things that you should care about. 

So for example, you should care a lot about what your mom thinks of your outfit, your friends, what you’re watching or listening to, and you should not care about what strangers on the other side of the planet or the other side of a screen think at all. And compared to your mom, your good friends should know that they barely rank. Or if you are woman, how do you evaluate the state of your home? You should care a lot about what your husband thinks and maybe a few godly friends, but you should not care what Instagram thinks, what strangers might think, or what the voices in your head say. 

Above and beyond these duties, you must care most of all what God thinks. And Jesus says that caring about what He thinks will sometimes seem like hatred of father and mother or children. And if allegiance to Jesus might get us accused of hating our own families, how much less should we care about what distant strangers think? Jesus says rejoice and be glad when people insult you and say all kinds of evil against you falsely, for His sake.

But do not miss the fact that this means caring about the things that Jesus wants you to care about, and it also means not caring about the things that Jesus doesn’t care about. And you’re constantly practicing. You’re practicing by how you spend your time, by what you read, what you think about, and how you evaluate your days. Did you honor your parents? Did you follow your husband? Was Christ pleased? Then rejoice and be exceedingly glad, and who cares what anyone else thinks. 

Love is not doing whatever anyone wants. Love is doing what God says. Love is doing what is actually needed despite what anyone thinks because that is how God loved us, and thank God He didn’t care what any of us thought about it.

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Up-And-Coming Comets & Conservatism

Introduction
The difference between true conservatism and everything else, which is to say, every form of cultural drunk driving, is the insistence at the outset that there is inescapable, inalienable hierarchy and difference baked into the world. There are fixed realities, and no matter how many times my dog barks at the moon, the moon will not come down, my dog will not grow wings, and it is a complete waste of time for NASA to consider her as an up-and-coming comet. 

Some Very Basic Math
Conservatism exists to say with confidence, even a care-free nonchalance, that 4 is a larger number than 3. All. Day. Long. And conservatives are not even sorry about it. Not even a little. We do not mind admitting that it really was a close call from some vantages. From a great distance, 3 millimeters and 4 millimeters hardly seems different at all. But ask a football player or basketball player whether the difference between 3 and 4 quarters matters very much, and you will hear an entirely different story. And if you ask the nuclear physicist, he will probably insist that the millimeters are even more significant than you thought. Do you really want your Lasik eye surgeon to just wing it? Is human government less significant?

I will hasten to add that conservatives are not embarrassed at all by the fact that both 3 and 4 are equally integers. They are both numbers, and they both have an equal value in terms of the broader mathematical project. It would be a sorry world without 3. And in some respects, how would we even get to 4 with it? We are grateful for the equal value of their existence, and we are grateful that their existence expresses entirely different values. 

Lies & More Lies
The central problem with every form of progressivism, radicalism, socialism, and spineless conservatism is all the deception. The deception begins by hauling out an abuse of authority (real or imagined), oppression of victims (real or imagined), and it ends with a proposal to make gravity illegal. And because the punchline is a lie, lies inevitably creep back up into the calculus. Since it is not possible to get the outcome they desire, they monkey with the variables. And lies beget more lies.

Follow me closely here: since gravity exists, they cannot really and truly outlaw it. So they propose raising taxes to fund a gravitational climate committee that will regularly meet to determine whether there are too many people living on one side of the planet and thus creating gravitational imbalances. This will require many meetings and subcommittees and researchers and field reports and assistants and secretaries and dinner parties and private jets and mistresses. And as you can no doubt see, at the very least, you will need to pay more taxes (we call them gravitational offsets) if you want to stay there in your cute bungalow in Kansas because gravitational inequalities are real, you science denier. 

A Catastrophic Conclusion
True conservatism hauls out the facts at the outset and confess that nothing whatever can be done about it. Mathematics is real. Gravity exists. Male and female are permanent. Truth, goodness, and beauty are transcendentals. And Boris Johnson needs a haircut. These truths we hold to be self-evident, and the stakes are really very high. Since they are self-evident givens wound through reality, they do not need our assistance to function. They only need our allegiance, our trust. And even then, they do not need us, they merely promise to be our friends if we admit their independent existence. But you cannot fight with reality without disastrous results.

A true conservative refuses to go along with any charade that pretends that lies are true. A true conservative will sacrifice all popularity and prestige, even his political career for the sake of truth. The fact that you have most Republicans celebrating governments full of women tells you that we currently only have two radical parties to choose from, and we do not currently have a man willing to say that the difference between 3 and 4 is glorious and catastrophic. 

Photo by Nick Owuor (astro.nic.visuals) on Unsplash