Uri Brito

On July 27, 2020 By Uri Brito In Church 1

When Dispensationalists Acts Like Reformers!

The 81-year-old John MacArthur is no stranger to controversy. Several decades ago, he penned a few books on Lordship that became best-sellers. Little did he know that evangelicals were interested in deep theology. Back then, he was concerned that Christians were taking the Gospel call to discipleship too flippantly. He noted that “the gospel call to faith presupposes that sinners must repent of their sin and yield to Christ’s authority.” The proposition was simple, but the opposition was massive.

Fast forward three decades, the octogenarian is still preaching each Sunday at Grace Community Church in California on the Lordship of Jesus. My differences with John MacArthur over the years have been significant, though what I find as I get older is that my admiration for pastors who have fought the good find for over 50 years increases. Adding to the list of controversies in MacArthur’s history is his now nationally recognized position that Jesus is Lord over governments and it is the duty of ecclesiastical bodies to disobey the government when it forbids worship (see Saturday’s post).

As a result of this decision to keep the church doors open, there are some indications that the local governments plan to shut down electricity should this happen again. This may be a mere threat as a way of discouraging gatherings. I would find that appalling, but California has been appalling for a long time.

MacArthur’s decision has been met with mixed reviews. Those who acquiesce to the status quo and say that MacArthur has no right to defy the government on the matter of worship and that we should submit to it willingly are mistaken, and I confess at this point, have only fragments of my respect. Others, more coherent voices, have articulated that there are some additional options that MacArthur has not contemplated and that he should do so as a way of setting a good example to other churches. It should be noted that these same voices are also cheering on the decision of J.D. Greer to cancel corporate gathering until 2021 and establish “house church” models until then. I cannot even begin to tell you the danger of such an approach, especially considering the after effects of decisions like these to the ecclesiastical ethos of modern evangelicals. These decisions assume that evangelicals in this country have a high ecclesiology. This can be the point of no-return for many large churches.

One response to MacArthur that caught my attention is that the elders of Grace Community Church should consider that this is not the right battle for our time. The real battle is the LGBT community and that the church should save energy to exercise those muscles on that issue instead of “spending down our capital on pandemics.”

But it has been over 150 days since the pandemic started! When is it time to say enough?! The problem is not exercising our muscles on this issue, the problem is not exercising strongly enough! We have caved into the either-or dilemma. The Christian church possesses the keys of heaven and hell (Mat. 16:19), therefore she does not have to wait to exercise anything at a future date, she should be ready to exercise her authority whenever she deems right.

The LGBT issue will come, but if the church cannot establish the centrality of worshiping as one now–with whatever protocols necessary for the protection of the saints–she will have no stamina or logic or grace to take on other pressing matters later. Once again, the proposition is simple and the opposition will surely be massive.

On July 25, 2020 By Uri Brito In Theology Like

Dispensationalists to the Rescue!

On July 13th, California shut down churches, hair salons and other places of commerce in at least 32 counties. Early on Gov. Newsom banned singing as a way to curb the spread of the coronavirus. We should add that this shut down is indefinite, which means government officials do not want to play the prophetic role. After all, the virus is spreading, people are dying, and the only reasonable solution is to shut down pubs and ecclesiastical gatherings. In their minds, there is no distinction between a beer and the Eucharistic wine.

Whether one thinks the governor is singling out churches is not the point. The point is that in restricting public gatherings on the Lord’s Day indefinitely Newsom has now entered into a zone of warfare with God and his saints.

Throughout this entire process, I have heard well-intentioned Christians who give the impression to have never read a single commentary on Romans 13, or whose commitment to worship itself is highly suspicious, throw out single verses as an attempt to cause radical dismay upon any who would dare not concur. But by now, arguments to obey government authorities indefinitely have gone straight down Dante’s Inferno where they belong.

One surprising feature in this entire process is the recent position taken by Grace Community Church in California, the home of over 10,000 members pastored by the prolific pastor, John MacArthur. Grace Community shut down in the early days for reasons I found unhelpful, but still understandable. Well, no more! MacArthur penned a powerful letter in response to the Newsom mandate. In it, he noted that “We, the pastors and elders of Grace Community Church, respectfully inform our civic leaders that they have exceeded their legitimate jurisdiction, and faithfulness to Christ prohibits us from observing the restrictions they want to impose on our corporate worship services.” And further, with great objectivity, he writes, “The biblical order is clear: Christ is Lord over Caesar, not vice versa. Christ, not Caesar, is head of the church…these are distinct kingdoms, and Christ is sovereign over both.”

There will be a lot of interesting follow-ups given MacArthur’s eschatological disposition and his history of escapist statements in the last 40 years. But suffice to say, as Joe Boot noted, MacArthur has expressed the basic Kuyperian vision we have advocated since the beginning. It’s the “indefinite” part that changes the trajectory of the conversation. The Gospels tell us that the gates of hell shall not prevail against the Church which means that shutting down church indefinitely is to open up ourselves to delivish attacks when we should be as the men of Nehemiah working with one hand and carrying a sword with the other (Neh. 4:17) ready to attack hell’s emissaries. This is not the time to retreat! Our children one day will ask us how we acted during this season. I want to boldly look at them in the eyes and say, “We did not give an inch to Satan’s domain!” As MacArthur rightly concluded, “How can the true church of Jesus Christ distinguish herself in such a hostile climate? There is only one way: bold allegiance to the Lord Jesus Christ.”

On July 24, 2020 By Uri Brito In Church 1

Remember Your Pastors

When John Calvin was dying in 1564, he called some of his closest friends to gather around him. Among them the gifted Hebraist Michel Cop, the precocious Nicolas Colladon, the brilliant Theodore Beza and others. He spoke with them about his early days in the ministry in Geneva, the hostility he faced; he defended his ministry and interpretation of Scriptures, and then the great leader of the Reformation took the time to apologize for his short temper during his long illness. He then shook the hands of each of his colleagues as they departed with a heavy heart.

I am moved by that entire scene especially as this company of pastors bonded over such fruitful ministries. They fought together to re-build a city after the laws of King Jesus, they navigated intense civil unrest, worked tirelessly to ensure that the people of Geneva received the best Christian education possible as they were now exposed to the teachings of Scriptures unhindered by ecclesiastical bureaucracy.

We need a new company of pastors who will support each other in times of turmoil, when revolts are on the horizon, and the Word of God is mocked everywhere. Pastors have faced difficulty in every century, but no other time in history has pastoral burnout, discouragement, and sadness so characterized the office of the clergy. The harsh reality of pastoral suicide among celebrity and local pastors in our day in America exemplifies this sad trend in evangelicalism. In fact, studies show that there has been an increase in suicides among evangelical pastors in the last 30 years. The reasons are many, but here is a small sample:

“More than half of evangelical and Reformed pastors told the Schaeffer Institute in 2015 and 2016 that although they’re happier (79 percent), they don’t have any good and true friends (58 percent). About the same number reported they can’t meet their church’s unrealistic expectations (52 percent). And close to a third battle discouragement (34 percent) or depression/the fear of inadequacy (35 percent) on a regular basis.”

The average stay of a pastor in a local church or in the pastorate altogether is under five years. Suffice to say, no pastor, no matter how gifted, can establish any form of vision or identity in that short amount of time. This needs to stop!

I have spent the last 6 years taking classes, reading, and am in the process or writing on this very topic because it not only impacts me as a pastor, but I have seen the dreadful eyes of death too close among my dear pastor friends. Many of them will never have the privilege of gathering friends on their deathbed and talk about their war stories and their tireless defense of the faith.

There are various ways to fight this trend, and there are practical ways to see this reversed in our generation. But the parishioner needs to see this reality loud and clear. Pastors do not enter the ministry for glory; they do not carry the burdens of the people for pleasure; they don’t maintain confidentiality for leisure; they don’t deal with division for the fun of it; they do all these things under the authority of the Great Shepherd who called us to this holy calling to serve the flock and to satisfy our Christ.

Pray for your leaders for they watch over your soul (Heb. 13:17). They desire your good and your prosperity under His good hands. Remember their labors and petition God to give them strength sermon after sermon, eucharist after eucharist, counseling after counseling, writing after writing. As the Apostle writes, “Do this so that their work will be a joy, not a burden, for that would be of no benefit to you.”

On July 23, 2020 By Uri Brito In Counseling/Piety Like

The Psychology of Porn

In the first 30 days of COVID, pornography use increased by 18%. Almost six months later that number has surely doubled. Restlessness, uncertainty about the future, boredom among teens and young adults (mostly), and fear make up some of the main reasons people engage porn. As I have said before, pornography in most cases provide a reward system for those who feel cheated in life or robbed of opportunities or simply feel that they have worked too hard not to deserve it.

But the harsh reality is that porn leaves us empty; incapable of fulfilling even the slightest desire to find life or newness. Pornography changes the human mind to see an alternative universe where one would like to dwell, but whose reality quickly turns to dust.

Another interesting area of research is how the impact of porn changes the intellect. I would not be surprised to discover 20 years from now that the main reason for the post-persuasion age is the unrestricted use of porn. It rewires the pathways in the brain and causes an individual to stop desiring deep things in life and thus longing for the cheap and destructive and stupid slogans.

I can predict that the frequent porn user does not see the role of the mind as a needed approach to honoring God (Mat. 22:37). Pornography removes the need for depth in life and chooses to satisfy itself in trivialities. The deep things, the big books, the long-form conversations fail to grab the attention when the imagination is wrapped in false versions of reality.

Men, when tempted to see porn today, remember your God, your wife and your children and like Luther, find a firm inanimate object and throw it at the devil, and say, “Get thee, behind me, for I am baptized in the Triune Name! My imagination belongs to Another!”

On July 22, 2020 By Uri Brito In Church Like

RIP, Church, 2020

I wrote in the early days of this brouhaha that the powers that be, especially those who rhyme with “schmalities and trowers,” are committed to a utopia vision where the common Christian is viewed as an enemy of the people for wishing ordinary things to continue as usual.

Comforts and protocols aside, the end game is perhaps not so much an intentional move to destroy Christendom (though there is some clear examples of that), but to diminish its impact so much that it becomes trivial in commerce and culture. Christians who add nothing to societal values are perfect candidates for wokedom.

Adding to this proliferation of weakness, the problem is not simply that certain civil leaders are seeking the demise of church life (which only functions in the liturgy of its natural Sunday morning habitat), the problem is that church leaders are complicit in this act. Churches great and small, from Andy Stanley to the little Baptist church down the road won’t re-open until 2021. Barna estimates 5% of churches in America are closed, shut down until the blessed year of our Lord Twenty-Twenty-One. Church, R.I.P. 2020!

The alternative of virtual worship has proven a complete failure. Again, Barna estimated that after 4 weeks into “virtual life” a vast majority of Christians no longer sit with their pjs’ and ojs’ in front of a screen. But again, this shouldn’t surprise any of us who affirm the Incarnation of Messiah.

There are folks who will naturally need to stay home, and then there are some folks who probably need the community of worship more than they ever have in their whole lives. I do not opine to say that all the answers are easy. Good order and grace are needed ingredients in our day. However, the Christian willingly never gives up his fellowship. He fights and contends for such a faith until there is nothing left to give but his own body.

On July 9, 2020 By Uri Brito In Culture Like

Identity Politics and Rest

When the Church finds herself in deepest need, it is not “identity politics” movements that will save her, it’s an identity with a political ruler that will. Only a Tribe that encompasses all earthly tribes can take needy people and supply her needs, whether emotional or financial. Only the Church with joint arms with her Ruler, Jesus, can find any hope.

If we tribalize our wants and believe that only our particular identities can provide refuge from our deepest longings, we will be left prodigal. We will quickly realize that our trust in groups and movements of ideas are only loyal insofar as we abide by their strict regulations. Identity politics is not an invitation to the weary and heavy laden, it’s an invitation for more weariness and heaviness. If our identities are not in Messiah Jesus, we are left with a twisted understanding of humanity.

The logic of identity politics is that your beliefs cannot be invalidated because your identity cannot be invalidated. The rhetoric goes that whatever I have to say you must listen to because of who I am and the color of my skin, and therefore no one should dare oppose my ideology. This form of tyranny built vicious movements throughout history that ended up oppressing others.

No one’s identity should go unchallenged; no one’s rationales should go unchallenged whether you grew up in the fenced-in suburb community, or ghetto or the slums of Guatemala, or Vietnamese villages. Our identities or experiences do not form the last word; they are one word in the conversation, but they do not exhaust the normativity of human experience.

Only Jesus has the last word! Only our identities wrapped up in Him give us any authority to speak into someone’s life and the closer we are to Him the more we will find relief from our own tribal identities and the more will we find rest in Him.

On July 6, 2020 By Uri Brito In Politics 1

Resenting the Successful

One of the most remarkable facts of the American system is that a person with barely any formal education (let’s say only a high school degree) can thrive in this culture and actually save enough wealth to pass on to his children. You have to have lived in other countries to realize how powerful that fact truly is.

The economic freedoms in this country allows someone with a creative or entrepreneurial mind to succeed in his sphere. If that is coupled with healthy savings and a basic view of wealth, that individual has a great possibility of making a decent salary while still being home for dinner at 6.

The entire premise, of course, entails that such individual follows the ethic of the ant. The ant knows his task and he is not hindered by supposed societal oppositions to his vocational aspirations. He establishes his vision early on and moves with intentionality.

The sluggard, on the other hand, views work as a necessary evil. He wakes up only to fulfill his duties, not to convert his duties into offerings of thanks to God. The sluggard quickly succumbs to leftists ideologies which promise equal share in profit and property. American universities are filled with sluggards applying for humanity classes which condemn business owners (often that ambitious young person with no college degree) taught by teachers who grew up resenting the ants among them. But philosophies of resentment is what the sluggard wants. He can get a degree and feel supported by a group of tenured professors who encourage his resentment towards the successful.

It’s indeed the great sign of the American experiment that a high-school graduate develops a sense of self-worth, respectfully views the process of labor, makes a fruitful living, treasures the ant, while the university grad is left with 20 years of loans with a degree in a limited market. But at least, he resents the bourgeois with great stamina; at least he was taught that success is a sign of oppression; at least he can take pride in reading Engels.

On July 3, 2020 By Uri Brito In Culture 1

Non-Trinitarian Singing

One of the distinctive features of our congregation where I pastor is our Trinitarian theology. It’s the article of faith that structures all the faith and practice of our faith. A visit to Providence Church (CREC) in Pensacola,FL and you will notice that our liturgy, our hymns, and lives all find themselves in God who reveals himself as One in Three and Three in One. The Trinity, Bavinck says, “beats the heart of the whole revelation of God.” It’s in everything we do, and not just on Trinity Sunday. It’s embedded into our practices and dogmas.

The Trinity was not something built up in a Greek laboratory, the Trinity is. It’s the way God reveals himself to his people from the beginning to the end of history and for all eternity.

One way our Trinitarian theology is made known is through our singing. I always say that if you tell me what you sing I can probably tell you what you believe. Providence is part of a long tradition of churches that sings hymns written in the past, and by past I don’t simply mean 150 years ago (we sing those too), but also 1,750 years ago. It doesn’t necessarily mean we have a higher sense of who God is, but it does mean a sense of certainty that much of what is sung is leading us somewhere away from the sentimentalism so prevalent in our day to the worthiness of a God whose breadth and depth has no end.

Suffice to say, there are some beautiful human beings composing some great hymns today. Some of them are theologically sound and deeply Trinitarian in their thinking. But these composers don’t make it to any famous contemporary magazines; they lack the sex appeal of modern christian composers.

So, it did not come to me as a shock when the recent piece from Christianity Today entitled, “The Trinity Is Missing from Christian Worship Music” stated:

“The Trinity almost never comes up in the songs sung by American Christians, according to a new study of the 30 most popular hymns and the 30 most popular worship songs over the past five years.”

Further, as religion professor Michael Tapper observes, “In the music we sing, it seems like we’re not as Trinitarian as we think we are.” This conclusion is rather frightening. In one way it serves to remind us that what we sing in church matters. Of course, this assumes that pastors think about what the singing communicates. The reality is that many are not much involved in this field at all allowing less theologically inclined musicians to make decisions that can change the heart of a generation.

When the Church sings, she is not just singing as an exercise to get to the sermon, the church is sermonizing in her singing. She is doing theology with her voice. So, when we think of what we sing in our churches, it is imperative that we know what we are singing. In the end, we can sing about how all blessings flow from God, but forget to sing to the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. If we do forget, our doxology is incomplete.

On July 1, 2020 By Uri Brito In Politics, Wisdom Like

In the State We Trust

One of the great problems in our day has to do with government overreach. Yes? Yes! Now that this simple proposition is settled, let’s move on to another side effect of this ominous reality. And that is that we subtly allow the government to have a greater voice in our affairs when we treat them as the apex of knowledge.

The State is never a neutral institution. She always opines intelligently or not; with data or not. She can’t remain silent. We may all have opinions on all sorts of issues, but if we feel we have to share our opinions on all sorts of issues we are fools. The State, similarly, is supported by the imbecile’s currency. She needs to speak on everything and on everything she must speak in order to preserve her power and authority over the populace.

Our crisis is one of too much information and little wisdom which means we will always be in a position where we feel like we must know precisely what to do at all times in all places. And the State is always there for you to tell you how you are to live, when to mask on, and how to think. We have swallowed the State’s pills without questioning much at all of her intentions and presuppositions. I suspect, by now, we all feel sick in some way.

We need a healthy skepticism of every word that proceeds out of the mouth of D.C. Those men and women are highly syncretistic and are always ready to please their gods before the good of the people. And the very best way to draw the masses is by acting like all power and wisdom resides in one place. Those who are weak will find refuge there. The State will keep talking and talking and doing their very best to tell you that there is only way to do things. But the wise know that very often, too often, the State is basing their opinions on their agendas and even without knowledge they have to opine to keep you at ear’s length.

I believe it was Rushdoony who once noted that “Life is rarely easy, but, with Christ our King, it is always good.” I think that’s a healthy principle to keep in mind. There will be many times when we don’t know what to do; hard decisions will challenge us and our faith; and we may even have a sense that we are being lied to by powerful voices. In such times, when the radar of veracity is going all over the place, it’s all right to trust in local figures who have your best interest in mind. In fact, they may even be wrong at times, but at least you know that they trust in the goodness of God working on your behalf. The same can rarely, if ever, be said of the State.

On June 30, 2020 By Uri Brito In Culture 1

When Candace Owens Loses the Cause

Candace Owens is the kind of provocateur that is going places. Her national show and audience continues to increase by the thousands. Her outspoken and brazen forms of expression have brought her a vast array of criticism as well as abounding praise. Candace is a black woman who forcefully opines on the needs of her community. She is part of a growing number of black voices on the popular and intellectual fields fighting against the myth that to be black means to subscribe to a certain political narrative. In her talks and interviews, her strategy is to leave no prisoners behind. The latest target was the well-known Professor, Dr. Marc Lamont Hill who joined her in a fairly civil conversation on the “The Candace Owens Show.”

Hill takes virtually the opposing viewpoint on all the major issues in the black community. He views a form of re-segregation as healthy and needful. He affirms that we should create spaces only for black people, and when questioned whether he would favor the same idea for white people he notes that white people would never want to share in an all-black dormitory. We should do the same thing for Asians and Jews, he says. “Merit” should play little to no role in being accepted to a university. Diversity forms the community that is best for society whether a certain GPA is good or bad.

On discussing the nature of riots and protests, he also notes that to get the nation to pay attention to black death in this country requires the “spectacle of violence.” While not wholeheartedly embracing violent demonstrations, Hill comes rather close.

Hill’s descent into subjectivity was phenomenal. He affirmed that gender is a “social construct” and that we can “re-imagine our reality;” (language used in humanity courses all over American universities) at the same time, there ought to be, he argued, clear laws that mandate the use of gender terms not according to what we think, but according to what the person whose gender has “changed” thinks. When asked if a man can menstruate, Hill paused and said, “Sometimes.” This combination of changes based on personal preference and the imposition in some cases as in Canada of fines for failing to refer to someone by their preferred gender (a number too great to count) is the leftist’s clever attempt to find refuge in contradiction.

But to be fair, and to continue my genuine tendency to offend all in the left and the right, Candace Owen’s provocative, conservative credentials fell short. When speaking about the LGBTQ, she told Hill that she was okay with the “L” and the “G” and the “B” but not the “T.” To be unhappily more precise, she was okay with transgenderism as long as there were no laws forcing us to address them in the pronoun they desired. Further, Candace rightly noted that transgenderism is a mental disorder (gender dysphoria) and to accept the worldview of the “transgender” community would be akin to accepting a man’s perspective that at night he becomes Batman.

The fundamental problem with provocateurs like Candace, however, is that they end up making deep mistakes in their rhetoric; they end up affirming certain presuppositions and missing the whole point altogether. Candace conquered her guest clearly, but in the process she lost her intellectual soul. While rejecting the Trans community and their agenda, she allowed gays, lesbians and bisexuals to re-imagine their realities as well. And for the Christian, only the Creator can take our realities and change them.

Some of my concerns with Candace is that such voices tend to fade when their vigor for the vitriolic ends. To be a provocateur in our day takes a lot of stamina and we need such voices constantly making the right enemies. But to provoke is an art that is best served with a consistent view of the world. Whether in the name of conservatism or not, we can’t choose which sins we hate less. When we do so, we lose the cause in the end.