Toby J. Sumpter's Blog, page 46

What Kids Need

What do kids need more than anything? What do they need from their parents? They need faithfulness. Faithfulness is not sinless perfection. Faithfulness is just doing today, right now what God requires of you. And when you know you haven’t done right, it means doing what God says to do about that. Kids don’t need a picture-perfect childhood. They don’t need experiences dreamed up in magazines, or movies, and or in your own imagination in order for you to be number one mom or best dad ever. 

They need mom and dad to simply be faithful. And faithfulness doesn’t mean boring, and it doesn’t mean impoverished. Faithful means fruitful, but it is the fruitfulness of simple faith and obedience. It’s the fruitfulness of the widow’s jar of oil. There only seems to be a little bit left most of the time, but for some reason it never runs dry. It means being thankful when there isn’t as much as you had hoped. It means being cheerful when you don’t feel like it. It means disciplining in love when you’d really rather not. It means confessing your own sins out loud and asking forgiveness when you sinned against the kids. It means giving everything you have all day long and collapsing into bed, only to hear the three year coming down with the flu on the living room carpet and staying up most of the night with her. 

You might get to go on vacations, you might not. You might have some fat Christmas celebrations, and you might not. You might have a nice car; you might have the lemon. You might have a decent savings, you might not. But your kids don’t need some graven image of childhood. They don’t need an idol of your imagining what family life is supposed to be like. They need you to be faithful to Christ today. They need to see you looking to Christ, trusting in Christ, holding fast to Christ in the midst of everything, and then smiling a lot because Christ is enough. Christ is sufficient. He is sufficient for the dishes you forgot to do last night. He is sufficient for the lack of sleep. He is sufficient for the bills you haven’t paid. He is sufficient for the serious medical and health challenges you face. He is sufficient for the sins you need to confess and the sins you need to forgive. And He is sufficient for everything in between. This is the oil of the Lord, and it never runs out. And this is what every kid needs.

Photo by Ben Wicks on Unsplash

Where God Puts His Promises

At Christ Church we practice a form of what is called “open communion.” Anyone who professes Christ and is baptized is welcome to join with us. This is the Lord’s Supper, and all of His people are most welcome here. At the same time, the elders of Christ Church are responsible to Christ for protecting His sheep. So we do practice church discipline and we honor the discipline of other faithful churches, and that sometimes means barring individuals from the table. This is why at the bottom of the bulletin it says, “We warmly invite to the Lord’s table all those who are baptized disciples of Jesus Christ, under the authority of Christ and His body, the Church.”

But the thing I actually want to note this morning is the glory of your baptism and underline a bit why we do emphasize being baptized first before coming to this table. There are some views of baptism that we reject – what we might call mystical or sacerdotal views, that God magically infuses individuals with His grace in the moment of baptism – as though His grace were like some kind of invisible fluid. But we also reject the mere memorial view of baptism – that it is merely a special way to say that you are saved. 

We hold to a covenantal view of baptism. Baptism is not only part of our public testimony to be a disciple of Christ, it is also God’s public testimony that He has made promises to us and to our children. It is like our family crest or a seal. It’s like our flag, our badge. Just as you instinctively show honor for a national flag or a soldier in uniform, the Bible teaches us to think highly of baptism as God’s sign to us of His promises. Those promises must be received by faith alone to be effectual, but they are wonderful, glorious promises. He promises to wash away our sins and to be our God and the God of our children to a thousand generations. But notice where God prefers to place those promises. He prefers to put them on us, and He puts them on us in the form of His own name – the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

So are you baptized? Then you bear the name of the Triune God. He has placed His promises on you, His seal, His royal crest. And therefore, you are here by grace. You are the baptized, and you are most welcome here. Believe in Him, and so come and welcome to Jesus Christ.

Photo by 戸山 神奈 on Unsplash

One Good Shepherd

Ecclesiastes famously says that life is like vapor, life is like wind. Trying to understand everything, comprehend everything, trying to plan and execute your plans is like trying to shepherd the wind. This is what Solomon means when he says all is vanity. He doesn’t mean everything is meaningless. He means we aren’t in charge. Our plans are often thwarted. Things don’t go the way we hoped. But despite the futility of trying to shepherd the wind of our lives ourselves, Solomon says you should fear God, obey His commands, work hard, live joyfully with your wife, eat your bread and drink your wine with a merry heart. 

But we might ask: Why? Why should we live in simple, joyful obedience if life is like a wind storm and you never know what’s coming next? Solomon ends Ecclesiastes by saying that these words of wisdom are like nails, driven deep, given by one Shepherd (Eccl. 12:11). We cannot shepherd the wind. We cannot shepherd the wind of our lives. But there is one Shepherd who can. There is one Shepherd who does. He is the Good Shepherd and even the wind and the waves obey Him. He is the Good Shepherd. He knows all of His sheep by name, and He will not lose one of them. He will leave the ninety-nine in search of the one that is lost, and when He finds the one, He lifts it up on His shoulders, and carries it home, rejoicing. 

Or change the image: When Jesus took Simon Peter out fishing and the nets were suddenly bursting and the boats on the verge of sinking, Peter fell down on his knees ashamed of his sin. And Jesus said, do not be afraid, from now on I will make you a fisher of men. Literally, Jesus says, from now on you will catch men alive. In that moment Jesus had caught Peter alive. Peter knew his sin and fell on his knees. And then Peter left everything and followed Jesus. 

Jesus is the Good Shepherd, and Jesus is the Good Fisherman. What is Jesus doing right now, in this moment in history, in our world, in your life? He is shepherding the wind and the waves perfectly. He is filling His nets to the bursting. He is catching men alive and bringing the nations to their knees so that He might bring them home on His shoulders. We cannot shepherd the wind, but we are safe in the arms of the One Shepherd who does.

Photo by Jean-Pierre Brungs on Unsplash

God Prefers His Strength

One of the common misconceptions of Christians is that God prefers weakness. And sometimes this misconception is exploited by those who hate God and His church. Some might point to Israel’s weakness at the Red Sea or the weakness of David a young shepherd boy or the weakness of Daniel and his three friends in Babylon, or of course Jesus, God Himself being born as a weak baby and then dying on a cross. 

But none of these stories actually prove that God prefers weakness. In fact, in all of these stories, there is also great strength: God uses Moses to dry up the sea and drown Pharaoh and his chariots; David knows how to use a sling and sword and kills Goliath; God shuts the mouths of lions and defends from a fiery furnace; and Jesus is born to die, but then He rises in great power. 

What we find instead is that the message of all these stories and of the entire Bible is that God is not limited by our weakness. Our strongest moments are still utterly dependent on God’s strength. He is the source of all our strength, and so, He is still the only source of strength when we are weak. 

In Hebrews, don’t miss the fact that among the heroes of faith some died, some lived, some lost great battles, some won great battles, but the common element to them all is faith. They believed God and obeyed God in their historical moment. What this tells us is not that God prefers weakness, but rather, God prefers His strength and power. His power is sometimes made manifest when He strengthens us and gives us victory. And sometimes He makes His power manifest by allowing us to see and feel our great weakness, so that He can deliver us in His strength. 

Therefore, the most powerful place you can be is in the will of God. God’s plan is to show off His power and might. He prefers His strength. So we want to be right in the middle of His plan, right in the middle of His strength, trusting and obeying.

Photo by Vicky Sim on Unsplash

God’s Complacent Love

The word “complacence” or “complacency” is defined as a feeling of smug or uncritical satisfaction in oneself or one’s achievements, like the little boy who announced to his dad one day that he was such a fast runner, he was even faster than God. 

But it’s striking that the older theologians use this word to describe one of the kinds of love we experience from God. The older theologians often made a three-fold distinction in the kind of love God shows us. The first was called the love of benevolence, and it describes God’s intention and plan to save us from before all time. The second is called the love of beneficence, which describes God actually saving us from sin and death. And the third is the one they called the love of complacence, and that refers to God’s supreme delight in His people and His rewarding of His people, as being completely perfect and holy and just. 

It’s one thing to see that God’s love was determined to save us from before all time. It’s another thing to see His love manifest in sending His Son to die and experiencing God’s love in forgiveness and cleansing and peace. But it really is quite another thing to be crowned with authority and glory when you know you deserve nothing but rags and shame. 

But this too is an essential part of understanding what Jesus won for you. He did not merely fulfill the plans of His Father – though He did that. And He did not merely fulfill the demands of justice for your sins – though He did that as well. He also won the right to make His people kings and priests who reign with Him. He won the right to treat us as nobility, as royalty, as friends. He who deserves all the crowns, won the right to give us crowns. He who deserves all thrones, won the right to set us on one. He who ascended on high, above every name, did so in order that we might be seated in heavenly places with Him and given a stone with a new name.  

Complacence in us is usually foolish and crazy. But complacence in God is His glory. He who sits in the heavens laughs. And I don’t think we can yet wrap our minds or hearts around the kind of laughter this is. But it’s good and clean and confident and full of love. And the sign of that laughter, the sign of that complacent love is this meal. What have you done? Your sins are forgiven. How bad was it? Jesus died and now lives. Lay it all down. Jesus invites you here, to His table, to His feast, to His joy, and He is pleased to have you here — there is a place set for you.

So come and welcome to Jesus Christ.

Photo by William Krause on Unsplash

An Inheritance & the Hands to Receive It

“A good man leaveth an inheritance to his children’s children” (Prov. 13:22).

This is one of the tasks of faithful parents, leaving an inheritance to their grandchildren. This inheritance should be understood biblically, which means it must be understood as both material and spiritual, both temporal and eternal. In context, Solomon is clearly talking about material and financial wealth, but the context is also contrasting the righteous and the wicked. Leaving a material inheritance – if it is to be truly received by your grandchildren – means that you must also leave them with the means to actually receive it. And the only means to truly receive gifts are the hands of gratitude. In other words, only a spiritual inheritance can truly inherit the gifts of God.

“Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right. Honour thy father and mother; (which is the first commandment with promise;) that it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth” (Eph. 6:1-3). And how do children learn to honor and obey their parents? That is the responsibility of parents to teach. And the reason parents must teach their children to honor and obey them is so that it may go well with their children, and they may live long on the earth. Requiring your children to obey you right away, all the way, and cheerfully is giving them the ability to receive God’s blessing for the rest of their life. And parents who do this graciously and cheerfully are modeling for their children how to do this. This is why Proverbs also says that failure to discipline your children is a form of hatred. We might also add that it is a form of theft. Parents who do not teach their children to obey are giving their children buckets full of holes. They are taking away their ability to receive God’s blessing.

Wisdom is more precious than silver and gold. Understanding is more valuable than diamonds. Teaching your children to love the wisdom of obedience is giving them something more valuable than a paycheck. But if it is taught well, you are also teaching them how to get a paycheck, how to work hard, how to be honest, how to be grateful, and therefore, how to pass that inheritance to your grandchildren.

And this is why you have brought your families here today. You are here in obedience to worship God. And you are here with your children because you want to give them the most valuable thing in all the world: Jesus, our priceless treasure. Because in Him are found all of the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. 

Photo by Lena De Fanti on Unsplash

Corona Euchatastrophe

A Long Introduction
Tucker Carlson reports that 37 Planned Parenthoods applied for and received federal stimulus money illegally. They have been ordered to send the money back, and they are under scrutiny and calls for investigations into whether they knowingly falsified information. This is the way of the wicked: arrogant, lumbering, dull. Even the devil, the father of lies, is massively deceived. He does draw many astray, but this is because our sin makes us stupid. He can disguise himself as an angel of light, but for those who are in the Light, his disguise is like a five year old putting a box on his head and claiming to be a robot.

Despite these shenanigans by America’s largest Molech Machine, Christians should be at the forefront of discerning what God is up to in all of the Corona Crazy. In fact, given that we know that God is behind all of this, we ought to be looking for signs of “eucatastrophe” – a sudden turn of events that brings great good. It was JRR Tolkien, author of the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings, who coined the term “eucatastrophe” as a key to understanding history, the world, and many of the stories that are foundational to civilizations. While some complain that it is a cheap trick, a Deus Ex Machina – God from the machine, God out of nowhere solution to stories, the true sense of the word “eucatastrophe” recognizes that the unexpected, the unforeseen deliverance is actually woven into the story all along. 

For example, in Lord of the Rings, the entire saga comes to its great climax with Frodo actually failing in his quest at the very last minute, and yet, at that moment, Gollum reappears, and does what we’ve suspected he might do for a great portion of the story, and all of his characteristics come together in their evil to actually counteract Frodo’s folly. Yet, we also see that perhaps Frodo’s greatest and most heroic act was actually his compassion on Gollum earlier in the story. And so the ring is destroyed and Middle Earth is saved. Euchatastrophe.

The point is: if we serve the God who works all things according to the counsel of His own will, and all things includes coronaviruses cooked up corrupt labs, and if God also works all things together for good for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose, and if what wicked men mean for evil, God is able to overrule and mean for good, then we should be looking for the signs of all of that in our current moment. What has God meant for good in all of this? 

This doesn’t mean we should not fight real injustice or push back against tyranny or apathy or real sickness. All of us have our duty to do, and then we watch how God weaves the stories together for good.

Malachi’s Promise Fulfilled?
I’ve actually heard some wonderful stories of families seeing wonderful healing and restoration and salvation with dads and moms and children sent home for weeks. When you’ve read the final verses of the Old Testament, “He will restore the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of the children to their fathers,” did you ever think God would do it with a vastly overblown virus scare? Did you ever think He would do it with incompetent governors and health officials?

The Wall Street Journal had a mournful article over the weekend about how women have been hit harder with the layoffs. You know we’ve been sounding the alarm about unemployment, and we should still sound that alarm. And yet, we are also free to point out that God has been sending wives and mothers home in a far more effective way than John MacArthur could have ever sent Beth Moore home.

But even the men, who are called by God to work and provide for the families: many of them are thinking about this duty and what they are called to with far more care and diligence than ever before. They are realizing that they cannot put their trust in the false gods of the government. They are seeing weaknesses in the globalization of everything – leaving them and their families vulnerable. We can rejoice in modern technology and the perks of globalization, and at the same time see potential weaknesses. And many men are taking steps to be better prepared, thinking more carefully about how to use their gifts and skills and how to acquire new ones, how to work harder, work smarter, and of course, buying guns. 

And have you seen the reports and heard the rumblings of many parents, forced to homeschool for the first time in their lives, suddenly looking up and realizing that they can do this? God cancelled public schools. Those sick and twisted indoctrination centers got shut down by the foolish fears of their own high priests. Praise God. And what will the percentage of returning students and families be in the fall, among those schools that actually reopen? Hopefully the numbers are disheartening to the statists. Or the colleges: what manner of evil takes place on most American college campuses? From the sexual debauchery to the philosophical and ideological brainwashing, what a relief that those concentration camps got emptied. 

Related, is the massive exposure of the hubris of our governmental elites. They think they are kings. They think they can make decrees and command us to close our businesses down. Apparently many of them are not even very familiar with the Constitution or Bill of Rights, or they think they are free to suspend those things if enough members of the media are whipped up into a lathered frenzy. And most of us are sitting here realizing that the corruption is way worse than we ever thought. In America, we don’t have kings, we have servants. We have representatives who serve us, the people, and they are bound by the constitution of our nation and the various constitutions of our states. Suddenly, many Americans know the names of the Governors, representatives, mayors, and city council members. And suddenly, many of us have read our constitutions with a whole lot more care. This is wonderful. This is good news. Come November there may be a complete blood bath for statism and governmental overreach. And hopefully in the next year or two, many state legislatures remind their governors that they serve at our pleasure. We do not have kings. We have civil servants. 

And sure, many abortion clinics remained open, and some of them managed to illegally obtain federal stimulus money, but many other abortion clinics shut down. I suspect that the number of overall abortions fell during these months. I also suspect that we’re looking at a Covid baby boom in nine months. And isn’t it glorious that many of the pride parades have been cancelled? All of these things combine for the potential of a radical shift in the momentum of our nation. God is giving us all the fixings for a massive renewal of fruitfulness and life: fruitfulness in families, churches, business, states – the fruitfulness of real freedom. There is a great deal of devastation, but there is also a great opportunity. 

Conclusion
Many of us pray regularly for Reformation and Revival in our land. But I don’t think we often consider what that would actually be like. It would be a massive upheaval. Real reformation and revival isn’t a momentary experience, it rearranges the whole landscape. It upends institutions and powers. Could this Corona Crisis God’s way of igniting something deep and lasting? I am not yet seeing signs of widespread reformation and revival and repentance, which we should continue praying for, but the very people who most adamantly believe in the so-called “science” of COVID 19 also believe in all that fruitless and suicidal insanity. God is allowing those people to get drunk on their own delusions. And the rest of us have been given an opportunity to rethink a bunch of stuff that is actually just practical Christianity. 

And of course that is often the pattern with folly: fools fall into the pit they have dug. Schemers like Haman are hung on the gallows they had built for the righteous. And of course the greatest eucatastrophe of all: the death and resurrection of Jesus. The wicked Jewish leaders did their worst, the principalities and powers piled on, and Pontius Pilate handed Him over, and their worst actually accomplished the salvation of God. 

So we are called to be faithful right where we are, to love our people, work hard, provide and protect those nearest to us, worship God faithfully every Lord’s day, and then watch our God do what He does, working all things together for good for us who love Him.

Photo by Ben White on Unsplash 

Does David French Pass the Character Test?

Introduction
David French has recently written another scathing article on the lack of Evangelical virtue, teeing off Al Mohler’s intimation that he will likely vote for President Trump this Fall. Now that the character test has been failed, French claims the competence test will follow closely behind.

I like David French.

I know some of my readers have just thrown up a little in their mouths, but hold tight and try to swallow it back down. As should be clear to anyone who reads my blog or watches/listens to CrossPolitic, I do not share French’s adamant Never-Ever-Till-Hell-Freezes-Over-Trump stance, and I frequently find myself disagreeing with French’s takes. But French was kind enough to sit down with the CrossPolitic crew back in January when we were in Nashville (which really was kind enough), but when he might have easily done his time with us and moved on, he made extra time for us and showed us genuine generosity. I think we may have been a genuine curiosity to him as well, sort of like seeing exotic birds in an Amazon jungle, or three Idaho natives off the reservation, or something.

David French’s biography has also underlined his care for genuine character. He hates hypocrisy. And you can tell this is a true hatred of hypocrisy because he examines his own life first. And I know from first hand experience that he’s willing to re-examine his own life first (more on this below). Probably most famously, his own involvement in Operation Iraqi Freedom, joining the United States Army Reserve to serve as a squadron judge advocate, and deployed to Iraq in 2007 during the Iraq War, testifies to this commitment. He was technically too old to join, but his conscience would not let that get in the way of what he saw as being consistent with his convictions. Add to this the massive work he has done for religious liberty and free speech, particularly on college campuses, as well as his vocal support for overturning Roe v. Wade, and there’s a lot to respect. And so I do.

French on Mohler
In this recent broadside, French excoriates evangelical hypocrisy — as has been his wont, seizing upon Al Mohler’s announcement that he is likely to vote Republican for the rest of his life, citing the platform of the RNC as more significant than the personal piety of the man — at this point. In the radio address Mohler noted that he did not vote for Trump in 2016 precisely because of character, in keeping with a fairly straight line of presidential votes beginning with Ronald Reagan in 1980.

French points to Mohler’s own acknowledgement of his past insistence on character, particularly during the impeachment trial of Clinton, in which Mohler notes that he made numerous public television and radio appearances calling upon Clinton to resign. So what happened? Perhaps the strongest representation of Mohler’s argument is that the last four years have simply seen a further massive shift in the American political, cultural landscape. Mohler cites the landslide of secular militancy from the left, trundling blithely off the cliffs of LGBT tyranny and insanity, combined with a surprising number of strong accomplishments from Trump, using executive authority to suppress abortion and his vast conservative judicial appointments, among the most significant. I mean, what happens when your choices for president are Nebuchadnezzar and Herod and you refuse to vote for either one the first time, but when Nebuchadnezzar gets elected and starts doing things that are halfway reasonable, is there no room for reconsideration?

French is at his strongest when he compares the cries of character during the Clinton impeachment and his claim that evangelicals have retreated from that clear standard with Trump. His question may have a reasonable answer, but it is a reasonable question: What gives? Clinton lied and committed adultery in the White House. Trump has been promiscuous and no paragon of virtue at least before coming into the White House. Has something changed in Trump’s character?

While I don’t know how Mohler would answer that, my two questions in return to French would be: How does Trump’s apology for for his very vulgar and appalling comments caught on the infamous Access Hollywood tape figure into this? Can Trump be forgiven for those comments at least? And second, don’t Trump’s judicial appointments and pro-life victories count for something in evaluating Trump’s true character?

French has not at all convinced me of his overall point. For example, he claimed in our conversation in Nashville that there were literally thousands upon thousands of documented Trump lies. He pointed me to Glen Kessler who runs The Fact Checker at The Washington Post for evidence. So when I got home I took a gander at the site and came away sorely unimpressed. I don’t know how to say this nicely, but I will try. It’s like these people never talked to politicians before. Politicians are notorious for overstatements, exaggerations, optimistic projections, high hopes, razzle-dazzle rhetoric, and broad brush braggadocio. The only difference I can tell with Trump is that he says it like a rich hillbilly, and I think that really gets under the skin of the elites. When you brag and boast and round up or round down depending on how you want to spin the story, you’re supposed to do it with a sophisticated air of class — you know like Obama. But Trump can only manage to muster a sophisticated air of crass and for some reason it almost always comes off rhyming with NASCAR or WWE.

My Plate of Peas
Now as I was reading along chewing the French article manfully, along came this line: “When a president declares that there were “very fine people” in a collection of tiki-torch-toting white supremacists, shouldn’t Christians of all colors be gravely concerned?” Here, I choked. Actually, I didn’t choke, I just closed the article. For several days. It might have been a full week. There are Bible verses about putting on the full armor of God and such, and well, this was definitely the stuff of principalities and powers in high places. Here, in the course of lambasting the evangelical world in the name of character and virtue and courage, French repeats the old “very fine people on both sides” slander. Jeepers, I said to myself, and then for good measure, I added, gadzooks. Eventually, as I say, after a week or so, I forced myself to open the article back up, and I finished it off manfully, like a plate of cold peas from my childhood (because reading thoughtful, intelligent people you disagree with really is good for your digestive system).

In making his “tiki-torch-toting” claim, French links to an article (the link is preserved in the quote above) in the Bulwark where one Robert Tracinski works his way through the actual words that Trump used and argues that there were no very fine people on site protesting the removal of the Robert E. Lee monument. All of them, every last one of them was a Neo-nazi, white nationalist because, well, and this really is his argument: he himself is a “very fine people” who opposes the removal of Robert E. Lee statutes, and well, he wasn’t there and he, of all people, oughta know if any of his very fine people had gotten off the reservation. The only people there, especially on the night in question, and the only permit apparently on file for the peaceful protest were a conglomeration of not so very fine people. And as everybody knows, the only people that ever show up to protests are the ones who have dutifully filled out the appropriate paper work and checked a box that indicates whether they are “very fine people” or “tiki-torch toting white supremacists.” And so there you have it, clear as a mudpie.

But here, at worst, you have Trump simply very mistaken about who was in attendance on a particular night. The point French seems to want to pin on him is that he actually intended to call “tiki-torch-toting white supremacists” “very fine people.” But that is simply wrong and false and incorrect. And the article French links basically admits that, albeit reluctantly and with all kinds of handwaving about why he shouldn’t have made that mistake. Regardless, if I were Glen Kessler or a member of his crew, I would be forced to call it a lie. I award you four Pinocchios, Mr. French. Trump’s actual words clearly distinguished from the bad white-supremacists and normal Americans who simply don’t want all the historical monuments pulled down. So, in the interest of preserving Mr. French’s integrity and virtue, I submit that he really does need to retract this claim.

Game of Groans
But I actually think there’s an even more glaring hole in Mr. French’s own character that calls into question his ability to make accurate character judgments. And it’s a point we brought up with him in person when we met in Nashville back in January. And that is his public enthusiasm for Game of Thrones, HBO’s erstwhile uber-popular blood and boob fest. For those of you virtuous enough to be blissfully ignorant, GOT premiered in 2011 and quickly became well known for it’s on-screen full nudity, sex acts, sexual violence, including at least one particularly gratuitous rape scene, which even many pagans were embarrassed by. While the actress later said she didn’t regret her role, she did describe her experience as requiring vodka to perform and involved her frequently crying afterward.

Even an article in Esquire Magazine, no paragon of Christian virtue or character, noted that “those scenes made it clear that Thrones was a show willing to mount its action upon the stage of women’s bodies.” When we pressed David about the apparent contradiction between his very public criticisms of Donald Trump’s womanizing and his own enthusiasm for the womanizing of Game of Thrones, we had a very good back and forth. You can watch the entire 2 hour interview if you are CrossPolitic Member here, or go here and become a member. And yes, that was an utter and complete shameless plug.

Conclusion
Our conversation with French continued for a bit after the cameras were turned off, and he eventually said he would definitely give my concerns more thought. Perhaps he has, and perhaps he’s even said something about it publicly, but I don’t recall seeing anything about it and a quick google search turned nothing up. So here I am wondering why we should accept French’s concerns about Al Mohler failing a character test when French was for years publicly and vocally entertained by full nudity, sex acts on screen, and dramatic rape scenes that required vodka and tears to perform. How has Mr. French not already failed the character test, and why shouldn’t we be concerned that he is in the process of failing the competency test?

Working Hard or Hardly Working?

Being busy is not the same thing as working hard. An engine can rev high and the car still not go anywhere. Noise and smoke is no guarantee of real, hard work. 

Real hard work is good work, and it’s good work in the first instance because it’s obedient work. Obedient work is blessed because God gave it to you. Did God give you papers to organize? Homework to complete? A car to fix, products or services to sell, something to design or build, children to care for, a home to clean, a meal to make? If God gave it to you, the task is dignified by the One who gave it. If the King asks you to clean or bake or build or organize something, the work is a royal task. 

There are various ways to be lazy. In our modern world, it’s actually pretty difficult to do nothing at all. But scrolling Facebook or watching Youtube videos can come close, even if you keep telling yourself you’re looking for something worthwhile. Another form of laziness is having four things that need doing, two of which need to be done now, and picking one of the other two because it’s what you’d rather be doing. There you are doing one of your jobs, staying busy, but avoiding the work you should be doing now. You might break a sweat. You might be tired when you’re done, but you’re actually being idle. You’re not being productive in the way God wants you to be. Sometimes the good work is staying at the office late, and sometimes it’s spending a Saturday playing with the kids in the backyard.

Related to all of this is Sabbath rest. When God commanded Israel to take one day off every seven days, He told them it was because they were slaves in Egypt but now they were free. Sabbath keeping is a proclamation of Christian freedom. And never forget: In the Old Covenant, Israel imitated God by working first and then resting. But since Jesus rose from the dead on the first day of the week, in the New Covenant we rest in Him first, and then we get to work.  

Photo by Todd Quackenbush on Unsplash

When Closing Church is a Bad Witness: A Reply to Jonathan Leeman

Introduction
Jonathan Leeman writes over at 9 Marks, asking the question When Should Churches Reject Governmental Guidelines on Gathering and Engage in Civil Disobedience.

First off, I suspect that Leeman and I are quite close theologically. While he is a baptist, I imagine that we would work our way down a list of significant biblical and theological truths and double check them all in solidarity. But I do think there are weaknesses in Leeman’s article that are common in the broader Reformed evangelical landscape and therefore worth addressing.

I happily acknowledge that the question he is asking and attempting to answer is an important one, and it isn’t an easy one. Perhaps my biggest overall objection is the apparent over-simplification of his answer. This simplification seems obvious even as he sets the question up, betraying a common contemporary bias, in favor of deference to civil government. But ask a different question: When should a wife reject her husband’s authority and disobey him? Or when should a Christian disobey his pastor or elders? In our hyper #metoo moment, I suspect that Leeman would express a whole lot more sympathy with wives of abusive husbands or congregants of abusive pastors than he does in his article about civil authority. At the very least, I think he would have included a number of qualifiers – indicating that abusive husbands and pastors should be ignored or disobeyed yesterday. But this article doesn’t seem to acknowledge that some American churches may be facing truly abusive civil mandates.

Truly Overlapping
I agree with Leeman’s point that there is often jurisdictional overlap, and I believe there is some of that overap here in this COVID-19 situation. But I don’t think Leeman develops that point consistently. What *I* mean by jurisdictional overlap is that both church and civil authorities retain their authority. When lives in the church are at stake, the church does not abdicate or relinquish its authority. And this doesn’t have to be formal: if you get a call from the police and they say there’s an active shooter in the area of the church, the service can be immediately interrupted. But the civil government does not have the authority to cancel church services. Period. Full stop. Civil magistrates and law enforcement have the authority to interrupt worship temporarily, if there is truly a life and death situation. But if you get that call three weeks in a row and there are no active shooters in your area, the elders would be fine to thank the officer for his concern and carry on. And if the threat is not immediate, then the civil government may ask for the cooperation of the church, and the church may consider that request, which, given what we know now about COVID-19 is most certainly what most civil authorities ought to have done in our country.

Leeman says the church and government have overlapping jurisdictions, but then he actually says that the government’s authority to preserve and protect life comes first. But it doesn’t. That authority is co-equal with the church’s authority to preach the gospel and maintain public worship. Both jurisdictions remain fully in effect. Privileging civil government, by making safety the first priority is a slippery slope. Leeman says we should submit because preserving life now allows for the freedom to gather for worship later. But certainly not always. Is it better to save your life now and worship God later? Well, surely the Biblical answer is: it depends. Sometimes it’s better to lose your life now. I’m pretty sure Leeman would agree, but I don’t think his argument was laid out carefully. And given the actual stats for COVID-19 for healthy folks under 65, what’s stopping a civil magistrate from using the same argument to order churches shut down every flu season, so that we can still be alive to worship every summer?

A Multitude of Jurisdictions
The other weakness in the article was his failure to differentiate between different levels and spheres of civil government. In a constitutional republic, we have the federal and state constitutions, then we have elected officials tasked with upholding those constitutions, both at the federal and state level, and then we have county and city authorities. In America, the constitution is the supreme authority. We don’t have kings (on purpose), and our magistrates are servants of the constitution. While I take the general meaning of overlapping jurisdictions between church and state, it’s really much more complicated than that. There are actually a multitude of overlapping jurisdictions. Beginning with the civil government side, we have federal, state, county, city, judges, sheriffs, legislators, governors, mayors, and police chiefs. Which government am I supposed to submit to? If my governor is looser than my sheriff, do I submit to the sheriff or my governor? If the governor is stricter than the President, do I submit to the president or the governor? And what if a judge says that what the governor is doing is illegal? And what if my city council is stricter than my governor? And what if my state constitution prohibits what my governor is doing? Do I submit to the constitution that my governor swore to uphold or do I submit to the governor who is breaking his vows? And do I have to wait for a judge to announce that or am I allowed to see it with my own eyes?

Then on the church side, there are also often multiple layers of authority. We have local sessions of elders, and some of us Presbyterians have presbyteries and broader denominational bodies that may issue declarations and statements as well. Should I submit to my local elders, presbytery, denomination, or my governor? And if there are only 5 cases in my county, does that matter? And if there are members of my congregation being crushed by all the effects of the COVID lockdowns, does that matter?

Protecting Life vs. Health & Safety
Now add to this the fact that while the Bible does grant the civil magistrate the duty to protect life, it does not grant it the authority to generally supervise public safety. The Bible grants the magistrate the authority to punish evil doers. Let’s have another Period and Full Stop, shall we? The magistrate may pass certain safety laws, but it only has the power to enforce them when an actual crime has taken place. The civil magistrate’s job is primarily punitive not preventative.

In Deuteronomy 22:8 it says, “When thou buildest a new house, then thou shalt make a battlement for thy roof, that thou bring not blood upon thine house, if any man fall from thence.” This is not a requirement for everyone to live in a castle. This is a safety regulation. It’s perfectly fine for there to be laws that require fences around balconies and swimming pools, but the civil magistrate is not authorized to send building inspectors around to check and see and fine those who do not have them. What the civil magistrate is authorized to do is issue the public warning that if anyone does not have a fence and someone dies, the property owner will be liable for that death. The death penalty for negligent homicide does have certain public safety blessings, but for some reason, that isn’t usually what people have in mind.

On the other hand, the Bible clearly grants the family government the duty to make decisions regarding day to day health and safety. It is the husband’s job to protect his wife as his own body, and see to it that she is fed and clothed and make sure all under his care are provided for and protected (Eph. 5-6, 1 Tim. 5). So, again, if the civil government says COVID-19 is a life threatening disease, and a couple months later, the only thing dead is my business and my ability to feed my children, at what point does a man have the duty before God to thank the civil magistrate for his concern and happily disregard isolation orders and reopen business in order to obey God in providing for his family? I recognize that Leeman’s question and answer were more narrowly tailored to churches gathering for worship, but it seems to me that to the extent that his argument partially rests on the jurisdictional authority of the civil magistrate’s interest in safety, the fact that God has actually given that jurisdiction to the family plays directly into this.

A Lot More Questions
I think my greatest particular disagreement is with Leeman’s conclusions. He rightly states that the government has to have a reasonable argument to ban all gatherings, but then he concludes that in our current situation they do. He says that stopping a pandemic that kills more than 50K in a month is reasonable. But this is really sloppy. How many of those 50K were primarily in a few highly dense populations? How many were over 65 years of age? How many were in nursing homes that got locked down with the disease or were sent sick patients with the disease? How many died with other co-morbidities? And do we actually know that the lockdowns did anything? Some nations like Sweden were fairly light on regulations and seem to have come out at about the same mortality rate. Also, how many have died not from Covid-19 but from the side-effects of the lockdowns – people not getting medical treatment for other “non-essential” medical procedures? 

Leeman rightly notes that the government may not single out churches in its regulations, but that is manifestly what they have done in many states. It has not been an even-handed blanket ban at all. Costco and Walmart and the Building Supply and the liquor store have all been crowded with people in my area. True, they do have those creepy dystopian announcements going over the intercom every few minutes reminding me to stay at least 6 feet away from everyone in the store, but I refuse to say “Amen” at the end of those prayers. Now I don’t think most politicians are intentionally targeting churches or religious gatherings, but I do think that their general postures have been singularly arrogant and discriminatory. If Pizza Hut can deliver a pizza to someone’s door, then pastors should be allowed to perform pastoral care. If big box stores can be trusted to implement common sense precautions, so should small businesses. And if you can have a couple hundred people in Costco, then churches should be wide open.  

Conclusion: A Bad Witness
Finally, Leeman believes that Christian churches submitting to the civil government is a “good witness.” I would have granted that point at the beginning of this disaster. When no one knew exactly how bad COVID-19 was, I do think it was a good witness to be willing to take precautions and submit gladly to those entrusted to protect our lives. But at this point, (and leaving room for exceptional situations), going along further with this insanity is just a witness to the general fecklessness of the modern church.

My question for Leeman is: What about all the small businesses that are being crushed – the working class, who go from paycheck to paycheck? What about the elderly and shut-ins and alcoholics that are suffering under these measures and being tempted to despair or revert to addictions? What about the spiking suicide rates? What about the soaring domestic violence rates? What about our witness to those people? Many evangelical theologians are relatively insulated by upper-middle class suburban contexts – folks with government jobs or the ability to work remotely at home or several months of salary in savings. But I would argue that unless you’re in a neighborhood that has been completely ravaged by the disease, continued church closures at this point, given all that we now know, is a terrible witness. At this point, continued acquiescence to government orders runs the risk of presenting a testimony of fear and virtue signaling.

The continuation of these regulations is quickly becoming nothing short of pharisaical purity laws which always land hardest on the weak and the poor. My neighbors are suffering, but at least I’m wearing this silly mask. Jesus said it was completely evil to allow man-made regulations to get in the way of obeying the commands of God, things like honoring our elderly parents and grandparents, providing for our families, and caring for the poor and needy in our midst. And the Church needs to lead by disregarding foolhardy and unconstitutional mandates that disproportionately land on the most vulnerable and cause us to disobey God’s clear word.

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash