Politics Archives - Christ Church

These Our Tumultuous Mercies

Christ Church on October 25, 2020

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INTRODUCTION

A little over a week from now, we will be selecting our next president. In preparation for this, because Christ is Lord of everything we do, we need to consider the adverbs that will need to accompany our application of the infinitive of that verb to vote.

This year such caution is more far necessary than it usually is. I am not old yet, but I think I can see old from here. And over all these decades of active political interest, I do not recall any political season that even remotely resembles this one. These are indeed tumultuous times, but God never abandons His people during such times. He shakes what can be shaken (and which needed to be shaken) so that what cannot be shaken might remain. And we are in fact receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken (Heb. 12:27-29). And that is why we should consider these times to be the times of our tumultuous mercies.

THE TEXT

“It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man. It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in princes” (Psalm 118:8–9)

“Put not your trust in princes, Nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help. His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; In that very day his thoughts perish” (Psalm 146:3–4).

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT

There are two places in the psalms where we are instructed not to put our confidence in princes. Psalm 118 is the one where God promised us that Christ, the rejected stone, would be made the head of the corner (v. 22). Because of the Lord’s mercies, I will not die but rather will live (v. 17). The right hand of the Lord does valiantly (vv. 15-16). This is the context of the exhortation not to put your trust in princes. They are not like the Lord. Trusting the Lord is better than trusting man. Trusting the Lord is better than trusting the leaders of men.

In Psalm 146, we are told that God is the one who made the heavens, the earth, the seas, and everything in them (v. 6). Not only is His sovereignty in evidence at the bottom of the deepest sea, it is also plain in the back alleys of the deepest slum (v. 7). He undertakes for the widow and orphan (v. 9), and He takes the way of the wicked, turns it upside down and shakes it. That includes the wicked who happen to be princes. Do not put your trust in princes (v. 3). Do not look to the sons of men, in whom there is no help (v. 3). Why is there no real help? His last breath goes out through his nose, and at that moment he is a spent force.

POLITICAL, NOTT PARTISAN

The Christian church is inescapably political, but this is not the same thing as being partisan. Our elders have had a long-standing practice of not allowing partisan politics a place in our worship services. In other words, it would be completely out of line for us to preach the Word, serve communion, and campaign for Murphy. When worship services are allowed to drift into that kind of thing, the church is being played. This mistake is how evangelicals have slowly become a demographic voting bloc, represented in Washington by lobbyists. In other words, we are represented the same way that Big Tobacco and the gun lobby are represented. But that is not where our true authority lies.

But believing in the separation of church and state (as we do) does not mean that we believe in the separation of righteousness and state. Who could possibly be for an unrighteous state? We do not believe in the separation of morality and state, or the separation of God and state. To believe in the separation of God and state is tantamount to desiring a godless state. And to desire that is to declare war on all humanity.

This means that the Christian church is essentially political. We represent a new polis with a citizenship in Heaven (Phil. 3:20), a new way of being human, and a mission to disciple the nations (Matt. 28:18-20). How could our assigned mission be to teach all the nations to obey everything Jesus taught, and yet not get into political issues? Abortion is evil (Ex. 20:13). Same sex mirage is an abomination (Lev. 18:22). Inflation is theft (Is. 1:22). You get the picture. And Ahab could not cover up his wickedness regarding Naboth’s vineyard (1 Kings 21:13) by calling it land reform, or making the rich pay their fair share, or a rezoning challenge.

PREPARE TO PIVOT

In a conservative congregation like this one, I don’t need to wave you off from the perils of voting for the Democratic candidate. That is not your peculiar temptation, or at least it had better not be. Most of you will be voting for the president, and it is not my place to tell you anything about that one way or the other from this pulpit. Remember what I said earlier—no partisanship. But what I can tell you is that you must not put your trust in princes.

Rejecting the left is the duty of every Christian citizen who has an open Bible. We despise all of it—anarchy in the streets, tax policies riddled with envy, arbitrary and capricious government, blood-soaked abortion policies, and all the rest of it. But rejecting this is not synonymous with bringing in the kingdom of God. If the left goes down hard in this election, which should be our prayer, it will not be the case that sin and temptation have gone into retirement. And, as the saying goes, no matter which way the election goes, the government always seems to get in. Christlessness will beckon from the right.

If the left goes down hard, there will be a temptation for those Christians who voted for the president to treat it as an emotional investment, rather than a tactical decision. But on LGBTQ behavior, the president is awful. And on fiscal restraint, he has the same general approach held by a shrewdness of apes that got into a warehouse full of trade gin. You can be grateful for all the conservative federal judges without putting your trust in princes. In short, the leftist threat to us and our liberties could be dealt with entirely, and yet our children and grandchildren will still have to deal with threats to the faith once delivered to all of us. We must be prepared to pivot accordingly.

CHRIST THE LORD

We worship and serve Messiah the Prince. Our first and foundational allegiance is to God the Father. We are Christians, and this means that we are called to a life of layered loyalties. Some of those loyalties of necessity involve people who do not love Jesus Christ the same way we do. We are, most of us, Americans, and so we should love our nation the same way the apostle Paul loved his nation. This is lawful and, I would argue, even required.

“I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost, That I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart. For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh” (Rom. 9:1–3).

When it comes to spiritual matters, and the authority of the Lord Jesus over us all, America is an insensate oaf, a bewildered palooka. We need to be in a position to declare the truth of this to everyone, regardless of who is president.

Racist, Sexist, Anti-Gay (Part 1)

Christ Church on August 27, 2020

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Collegiate Reformed Fellowship is the campus ministry of Christ Church and Trinity Reformed Church in Moscow, Idaho. Our goal is to teach and exhort young men and women to serve, to witness, to stand fast, and to mature in their Christian Faith. We desire to see students get established in a godly lifestyle and a trajectory toward maturity. We also desire to proclaim the Christian worldview to the university population and the surrounding communities.

What It Means to be Genuinely Pro-Life

Christ Church on May 5, 2019

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Introduction

Those Christians who have spent much time in conservative Christian circles know that we are pro-life. That almost goes without saying. And we often have some of the basic arguments down, but we need to make sure that we have the true foundational issues down as well. That means, as you should instinctively know, that we have to ground our convictions on the Scriptures that have been given to us by God.

The Text

“If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished, according as the woman’s husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine. And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe” (Ex. 21:22–25).

Summary of the Text

In this law that the children of Israel were given, we can quickly see the parity of the law. This is part of the Israel’s case law system, and so a particular scenario is described, from which we are called to derive the principle of justice so that we might apply it in other comparable situations. So two men are fighting, and if they careen into a pregnant woman such that she gives birth prematurely, but the child is all right, then the guilty party is fined what the husband determines and the judges allow (v. 22). But if there is harm (“if mischief follow”) then the penalty that is exacted is precisely the same as the penalty that is exacted when harm is done to fully grown adults (Lev. 24:17-20; Deut. 19:17-21; Matt. 5:38).

Some might want to argue that this is talking about possible harm done to the woman, but this is not consistent with the language of the law at all. If it were dealing with whatever harm the woman suffered, then the fact of her being pregnant would be entirely irrelevant. The law is plainly talking about harm to the baby.

Scriptural Consistency

This is not something that we find in one odd corner of the Old Testament. No, God’s word is consistent on this.When a child is being mysteriously formed in the womb, God is the one doing it (Ps. 139:13; Jer. 1:5; Job 31:15). The children of the covenant are the children of the Lord from the moment they began to exist (Ps. 22:10). When Mary came to visit Elizabeth, John the Baptist rejoiced over it in utero (Luke 1: 41-44). This was not a quaint superstition from the hill country of Judea, but was rather what Elizabeth said when she was filled with the Holy Spirit. And so we come to the fundamental pro-life passage—“Thou shalt not kill” (Ex. 20:13; Deut. 5:17).

The Mere Fact of Scripture

And so we see there are a number of Scripture passages that outline the Christian position on this issue. But there is an underlying issue, a deeper issue. And that is the mere fact of Scripture, the mere fact of an authoritative Word from outside the human race, a Word that we cannot alter, abolish, modify, amend, or repeal. God speaks to us, and He speaks to us from the Heaven of Heavens. His Word simply is. We may accept it or reject it. If we accept it, we shall be saved by it (because His Word includes the central message of Jesus crucified and risen). If we reject it, then we shall be judged by that Word we rejected. Not on the menu is the option of getting the Word to go away and bother somebody else. This fact of a transcendental Word leads directly to the next point.

What Is a Person?

As we are talking to non-believers, whether friends, family, co-workers, and so on, and we come to discuss this issue, we soon discover that we differ on what should be done. We believe that all human abortion needs to be outlawed. They want to keep abortion legal, although different unbelievers might go for various restrictions on abortion. This is the content of our disagreement. But let us go a step further and we will see where the real difference lies. When we ask what is a person?these two groups do give different answers. But why? The different answers arise from the fact that we are appealing to the legal codes of two different religions. One is the religion of man, and the god is Demos. The other is the religion of Christianity, and the God is Jehovah, Father of the Lord Jesus.

For the non-believer, a human being need not be a person. For the believer, the unborn child began to bear the image of his or her Creator God the moment the sperm penetrated the cellular wall of the egg.

Definitions Fight

Who defines a person? When we define according to the law of a particular God or god, then the definition is going to reflect the character of the god of the system. Because Jehovah is holy and immutable, this means that laws based on His Word are also going to be holy and unchanging. At this point of comparison, Demos the fickle god of the people, is unholy and is changing all the time—from one kind of unholiness to another. This shiftiness with regard to character is why secularism wants its authority over definitions to be kept murky and in the background. Remember what Chesterton said in this regard: “Definitions are very dreadful things: they do the two things that most men, especially comfortable men, cannot endure. They fight, and they fight fair.”

A Modest Suggestion

Pro-lifers are accustomed to speak of the sanctity of human life. But I would like to offer a way for us to improve this, and to make our meaning more clear. Rather, we should talk about the sanctity of God’s law, and the consequent dignity of human life. Human life does not provide the standard. Human life is what the standard—given to Moses on Mount Sinai—protects.

If we make human life the standard, then we have to spend time explaining why we are against abortion but support capital punishment. This objection canbe answered (we oppose executing innocents who have not been given a trial, which is not inconsistent with support the execution of guilty people who have), but it is cleaner to side-step it.

The Image of God in Man

Unbelieving man cannot reach God in order to fight Him, but would if he could. But failing that, like a rebel who cannot overthrow a hated king in a distant castle, he burns the king’s effigy in his own village—an image of the king that he canreach. Small children bear that image, and they are defenseless. We love the image of God in even the most helpless of our fellow men, and this is how we show our love for Christ, who is the ultimate image of the ultimate God.

Aeneas, Anarchy, & America #3

Ben Zornes on September 25, 2016

Introduction:

As we read Scripture carefully, we should note that there are many differences between the status of the Jews in Isaiah’s day, for example, and our condition. At the same time, we have to realize that God gave the Scriptures to us for an example, so that we would be able to learn from their failures. We see this in multiple places (e.g. 1 Cor. 10:6, 11; Jude 7; Rom. 15:4). And this means that there are strong elements of continuity, and not just discontinuity. If there is no continuity, there are no lessons.

The Text:

“Woe unto them that seek deep to hide their counsel from the Lord, And their works are in the dark, And they say, Who seeth us? and who knoweth us?” (Is. 29:15).

Summary of the Text:

There are different kinds of blindness. There is natural blindness—a rock is blind, for example. Rocks can’t see at all. There is unnatural physical blindness—as a man may be blind through no fault of his own. He belongs to a race of seeing creatures, but he cannot see. And then there is the peculiar kind of blindness that believes that the God of all omniscience is blind. This kind of blindness is the result of a judicial stupor—when God strikes a people for their rank hypocrisy.

In just such a context, Israel was blind because they had blinded themselves (v. 9). They were drunk, but not with wine. The Lord had poured a spirit of stupor over their heads (v. 10). What was happening was to them a sealed book, or an unsealed book in the hands of an illiterate (vv. 11-12). The cause of all this was their formalism and hypocrisy (v. 13). God was therefore going to do something amazing (v.14). Then we have our text—woe to those who want to outsmart God (v. 15). Surely, Isaiah says, you have everything inverted—clay does not shape the potter (v. 16). Clay does not have the right, or the power, to do any such thing. Clay that attempts to aspire to the role of potter can only achieve the status of being messed-up clay.

The Father of Lies:

The issue is lies, always lies (John 8:44). In political life, the foundational issue is honesty. What do I mean? If someone were to maintain that God did not know the location of a particular river in Montana, and someone were to contradict him, their resultant debate would not be a debate over geography. We have to recognize that when two armies meet in a particular place, fighting over the control of a continent, the actual turf where they are fighting need not be that important—whether it be Waterloo, or Gettysburg. When the serpent lied to Eve, the death was in the forbidden fruit, but the poison was in the words “hath God said?”

“But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.” (2 Cor. 11:3).

So for example, if someone were to tell you that Jesus never went to Capernaum, the issue is not how important it was in the abstract for Him to ever visit that place. The issue is what God has told us—whether through conscience, nature, right reason, or Scripture. And the central, foundational warning must be this matter of simple intellectual honesty. As Emerson once put it, “The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons.” When dealing with liars, you must always define your terms. Defining terms is how you count the spoons.

Common Idols

All of our current woes are a function of idolatry. Either we are living under the blessing of the true and living God, or we are living under the faux-blessings of the false gods, faux-blessings that will always reveal their anemic nature at some point. Consider some of the following:

What’s Wrong With Human Rights?

Human rights are given by the god of the system. If the God is the true God, then the rights are true rights. If the gods are false, then the gifts they give (including “rights”) will be false gifts. Moreover, they are false because they will reflect the nature of the giver. In a secular society, where the god is Demos, the people, the gifts will reflect the nature of the giver—and so they will be both sinful and mutable.

For instance, if you have a right to affordable housing, this means that someone else has an obligation to provide you with it. This is the kind of thumb-on-the-scale-cheating that idols do all the time. But when you have the right to speak your mind, no one else need do anything. So always remember that false gods offer a false gospel.

Pseudo-History:

It is a matter of great importance whether Moses or Jeroboam writes the history books. We might be able to agree on the phrase “this is the God who brought you out of the land of Egypt.” The disagreement comes when we examine the referent of “this.” What God are you pointing to?

You have been told, ad nauseam, that the United States was founded as a secular republic, breaking with the older order of Christendom. Secularism, formal religious neutrality, saved us all from endless religious strife and blood-letting. But this is almost entirely false. False gods write false salvation narratives.

American Exceptionalism:

One of the more common idols on the right is the notion of American exceptionalism. False gods offer a false doctrine of election. But look where this hubris has gotten us.

What Cultural Engagement Actually Is:

Some Christians run away from culture. This is the separatist move. Others approach culture, hoping for some kind of amalgamation or compromise. This is the syncretistic move. Others go over to the secular culture in order to surrender to it. This is the “convert me” move. The only appropriate option for us as Christians is to recognize the ultimate authority of Christ, and to disciple all the nations, including this one, baptizing and teaching obedience.

Has It Come to That?
We have to choose from one of the two main candidates, it is said. But why? If someone says that we have to vote for Trump because Hillary is far worse, then wouldn’t that require voting for Hillary at some point if she were running against someone far worse?

What do Christians do when there are no elections where they live? Well, they have to trust God. But we don’t want to have to do that. Trust God? Has it come to that?

The Governments | Reformed Basics #5