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On November 30, 2023 By In Culture

Love the Sinner. Hate the Movement.

A MATTER OF LOVE

Generally speaking, every Christian has some level of understanding that God has called us to love. It is kind of the point of being a Christian, right? Paul says if we do not have love, we are nothing. Jesus said that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. And He did not provide such a glorious and precious Son to reproduce more Grinches on Mt. Crumpit or more Ebenezer Scrooges on Business Street in London. 

God saved us and did it through the greatest act of love ever recorded to make us loving people. Jesus even said that they (the world) will know that we are true disciples of Jesus by the way that we love one another, which means how we love other Christians (John 13:35). But, Jesus also taught us that we are to love our enemies and to pray for the ones who persecute us, which means our love must extend beyond the people who attend Church with us. We must be willing and ready to love anyone, even those who hate us most ferociously. 

And this is where the confusion occurs. Just because we are to love people does not mean we are to love what they do or the sinful movements that they have ensnared them. It is my contention, and what I will be arguing here, that standing against a MOVEMENT is wholly necessary, and it is one of the chief ways that we genuinely love the PERSON. 

For a moment, pardon me for my pungency. I will grab the flame thrower to light a couple of candles, and I will do this on purpose. Sometimes, we need a mother’s soothing lullaby to help us fall gently to sleep. Yet there are other times when we need to be shaken from our slumber by the father because the house is on fire. Today will be more like the shaking. 

THE ABORTION MOVEMENT

I said above that we must love the sinners caught in sinful movements while hating the movements that trapped them. This is true. Which means we must not hate women who have had abortions. We must love them (profoundly so). This means we must love them enough to hear their stories of pain, to empathize with their struggle, but also to refuse to sugarcoat what they have done and to bid them to repent for murdering one of their children. If that language seems overly harsh, perhaps you are part of the problem.

Think about it, how many children in this country, and around the world, have to brutally die before we start taking this issue seriously? How many heartbeats need to stop for us to go beyond conservative incrementalism and heartbeat bills to flat-out abolish this disgusting, immoral practice? And let me just ask the obvious question: can our actions really be called loving if we allow this culture of death to continue? Are we really being kind to all the innocent babies who were chopped up into bloody pieces inside their mommy’s womb or chemically roasted by toxic abortifacients when we say things to the mother like: “It wasn’t your fault” or “You had no other options.” How sick and demented do we need to be to believe this garbage? Biblically speaking, abortion is the wanton sacrilege of human life, plain and simple, and total abolition of it is the only just outcome. To tell a woman anything else is to lie to her, make excuses for her sin, and allow her to believe the lie that God is not enraged over the shedding of innocent blood. He is the one who heard Abel’s blood crying out from the ground, and He is the one who hears every tortured fetus screaming from the cold metallic pan. And He will avenge them. 

From a Biblical and ethical standpoint, there is nothing morally different between a woman getting an abortion and hiring a hitman to kill her toddler. In both instances, she bought and paid for a professional to kill someone she was supposed to love, care, and protect. We must stop euphemizing our language and call this precisely what it is. Abortion is not healthcare. Abortion is the intentional, inexcusable, and unauthorized decision to terminate a precious life that belongs to God alone, who endowed it with significance, dignity, and personhood. 

And, while you may still be reeling from my descriptions, this is precisely how we love people. We love them by telling it to them straight and by pointing them to the risen Christ as their only hope. We love man and woman by exposing the lethality of sin, which is awful news, and then by providing them with the remedy, which is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He is the only one who can heal the wounds of a mother who killed her child. He is the only one who can forgive a man for pressuring his wife to let medical serial killers in planned parenthood dismember his legacy. He is the only one who can forgive the murderous doctors who have gallons of blood dripping from their hands. And the only way to truly be loving is to point everyone to Him. 

And, what I find most astonishing is how the amazing grace and tender mercy of our perfect spotless savior totally and completely buries all of our sins! As reprehensible as abortion is, and as much shame as that should induce if left to our own devices, a woman who turns to the Lord Jesus Christ is not only forgiven but her shame is also eliminated! Her sins have been washed white as snow, and He restores her to royalty in His Kingdom. She has been given a new and glorious nature that cannot be taken away from her. She is healed! She is loved! She is restored! She is no longer known by a scarlet letter. And she may well worship in eternity alongside her aborted child. How? Because He took the curse that she deserved and gave unto her the honor she could never earn! Jesus Christ, her Lord and Savior, overpowered the putrescence of our iniquities and rescued us for His glory and our great good. This is true for all sinners! Why do we hold back from declaring this message? Why do we think this is unloving? And because of that, why do we entirely pervert this glorious Gospel by avoiding nearly half of it, skipping past the bad news of sin and death, to accommodate a sinner’s fragility? If you throw out the bad news, the good news makes no sense! If you throw out the need for a savior, you no longer have the Gospel! That is not the path of love or how we ought to love anyone. 

At the same time, while I love the woman who has had an abortion, I must hate the abortion movement with every bone in my body. I will ever be at war against this modern day temple to Moloch! Why? Because it is the movement that is promoting, cheering on, and subsiding the murder of nearly a million image-bearing humans every year! This movement was dreamt up in the recesses of hell, fueled by the power of demons, and has captivated a swampy and pathetic government of fiends who would rather kill its citizens than lose political power or funding. I will love the person enough to hate such a despicable movement. And I will hate the movement enough to make war with it all my days. 

THE LMNOP MOVEMENT

We must not hate the sodomites or lesbians who are caught in nature-denying, God-hating behavior. We also must not hate transgender people who have denied one of the most basic tenets of reality: their own biological gender. And, furthermore, we must not hate human beings who are mired in such delusional confusion, that single persons now want to identify as plural pronouns, or the genetic human who now want to use a litter box instead of a toilet. This is not to mention the kind of mental disorder that would cause a homosapien to identify as a two-spirit penguin. This would be hilarious if it were not true. Being true, I am heartbroken for them. I am shocked and grieved that such an apparent mental health crisis, of this magnitude has broken out in the Western world, and the “adults in the room” are trying to cure it with identity politics and clever deceptions. This is like trying to put a fire out with gasoline or trying to plug that hole in the Titanic with bubble gum. Instead of receiving the help they need to confront such vivid and wretched delusions, people today are force-fed horse manure from a society that absolutely hates them and a medical establishment that is profiting from lopping off their genitals. 

Remember, love always seeks the best for a person. And what is best for a person is what God says in His Word. We must love men and women who are being led to the slaughter enough to point them away from these diabolical fantasies, the damned identity politics dreamt up by demons and instead bid them to turn to the truth of the Holy Scriptures. We must love them enough to call them out of their sins and perversions, leading them toward the belly of the fiery abyss. We must love them enough to call them to repent and turn to the Lord Jesus Christ before it is too late. Placating them is not loving them! A parent who gives into every demand of the child to reinforce their inner totalitarianism is not loving them!

In the same way, patting people on the head, leaving them with warm and fuzzies in their sin, while they are eternally separated from a Holy and Righteous God, is to despise them! It is to wish them doubly dead with a disturbing smile on our faces. That is not love; we must love the person enough to behave differently! 

But, simultaneously, I pray that the LGBTQ movement dies a thousand deaths. A movement that cheers on abominations mocks the living God with flags of rainbow-colored debauchery and prays upon the most insecure and impressionable minds. A campaign that calls its victims to abandon nature and reason for social clout and swelling subscriber lists. A movement that is championed by an unhinged government that will take children away from their parents for not allowing them to degrade their own bodies in the most lude, disgusting, and abhorrent ways. A movement that is weaponized by doctors who threaten body butchering as the only escape from suicide. A movement peddled by freaks on Youtube and TikTok that promise you will be well-liked, ever-celebrated, and left always with a feeling of belonging if you would only come out. I loathe that movement. And I will do whatever it takes to see it come to a total and complete end. Why? Because it is destroying men and women, and it is devouring children! It is toxifying the country my children will inherit. And it is damaging the social fabric of the nation. 

Very simply, we are called to love our enemies, love the ones who are caught in soul and body-degrading sins, and love them enough to speak the truth to them before it is too late. Yes, and amen! But we are never commanded to love the ideologies that are destroying them. We are never once called to cheer for the movements that trap humanity like fish in the net. Yet, as I said before, this is where so much confusion has occurred in the Church these days. This is where the enemy has divided and conquered in legionous ways. By leaving the Church in the West so divided on this issue, typically into four camps as it related to this issue, we have become easy pickings for the author of these Luciferian fables, the lord of darkness himself.  

For a moment, I want to sketch out three erroneous views and how those views are wrong, and then I want to end with the right approach. 

THREE ERRONEOUS VIEWS

1) LIBERALISM- THE DEMONIC LEFT 

This view barely needs to be explained. Proponents believe the sinner and the movement should be lauded, supported, and championed. This means that there is no view of sin or hell, there is no Biblical understanding of what love is and what it calls for, and all that is left is just a watered-down “gospel of tolerance,” and the twin bricks of “love is love” and the “you do you’s” that pave the path to destruction. This view is not the Biblical Gospel because it begins with the assumption that what people need most is acceptance of their sins instead of repentance from them. And sadly, this view has infected entire churches, denominations, and conventions.  

Every lumberjack lesbian pastor to every dove-award-winning male musician who now sings in dresses proves my point. This is not loving, and they are not Christians. They have abandoned Christ for hedonism and pluralism. They have abandoned the Biblical Gospel for infatuation with immorality. They have not chosen the path of love but are on a highway to hell. And thankfully, they are not very difficult to spot in the wild. Just look for the bright colors or the 6’4 muscle bound woman on the swim team who still has a cringy bulge. 

We must reject the lie of liberalism. Instead, we must love each and every person caught in sin. We must love them enough to call them to repent. And we must be at war with ideologies that ensnare them. 

2) FUNDAMENTALISM – THE HATE-FILLED RIGHT

On the other end of the spectrum is a nearly equally abhorrent view. Instead of being known for unbiblical and degenerate forms of tolerance and love, this group is known for its rigid intolerance, as well as a refusal to love anyone. And while the fundies rightly understand the need to hate the sinful movements that trap so many souls in the bogs of sin, they forget that they are also sinners and peddle a gospel that is devoid of humility or grace. They turn their pharisaical ire upon anyone and everyone who exists “out there,” and they chide them all to hell. 

Sadly, this view has also infected the Church in small but shrinking pockets that usually do not spread as quickly as liberalism since no one likes being around them enough to join them. Where does this disease show up? It shows up in every megaphone screaming street preacher who is not out there to see men and women saved but to remind them they are damned. It shows up on Sunday mornings in every Westoroesque Church where the blowhard behind the pulpit screams, “God hates fags.” It shows up wherever men and women caught in these sins become the object of our hatred instead of the mission field we have been sent to. 

We must reject the hate of fundamentalism. Instead, we must love sinners enough to get to know them, eat with them, and call them to repent. We must be at war with the ideologies that ensnare them and the pride that entangles us. 

3) EVANGELICALISM – THE MUSHY MIDDLE

The evangelical Church is always trying to land in the mushy middle, whose spine seems to be made of pudding or jello. And, before you object, let me remind you that the vast majority of squishy pastors these days will not preach on the reality of hell, the ugliness of sin, or the dire need for repentance because of the holy, righteous wrath of God. I have been to these churches. I have served on staff in these churches. Where men are so afraid of offending men that they regularly offend their God by either apologizing for God’s Word or refusing to herald it. How many sermons have you ever heard on the covenant curses in Deuteronomy 28, the list of sins that are called abominations, or any other topic that our society is struggling with in any meaningful way? If there is a potential for offense, the modern-day pastor runs like a coward from the battle. And this is not mere opinion. It is an epidemic in evangelicalism. 

This gets to my point. You cannot love someone you are lying to, and if you refuse to tell them the truth or call them to repentance, then you are lying to them. That is like knowing a man has stage 4 cancer, and instead of giving him the diagnosis so that he can begin the treatment or settle his affairs, you refuse to tell him because it may hurt his feelings. That is the opposite of love! That is to become the equivalent of a moral monster. And it was certainly not the way Christ loved people in the Gospels. Yes, He knelt down in the sand to restore a sinner, but He also said, “Go and sin no more.” In fact, there is no single account where Christ doesn’t point out the sin, call the man or woman to repentance, and extol them to holy living moving forward. To adopt an ethic that Christ will vomit out of His mouth just to save face in public is not loving. It is criminal! That is the picture of a very sinister sort of hatred that watches as a person asphyxiates when all they needed was to be turned onto their side. In this case, men and women must be pointed to Jesus Christ! He is the hope! He is the cure! To trade in the Gospel for niceties is repugnant, unloving, and something every cowardly pastor will answer for. 

Furthermore, you cannot hate a movement that is destroying human beings when you refuse to call it out. I am talking to you, pastor yellow-belly, when you sit silently on the sidelines as sexual predators fester, as women in your congregations believe the lie that it was just a clump of cells, and as diabolical trends in Hollywood disciple your people, just remember that your silence was akin to hating them. You wasted your office. You impaled your people on the post you were supposed to care for them with. And you have hated your own ministry. When you have mold growing in your home, you spray it; you don’t ignore it. And yet, your sugar and spice mentality that never rocks the boat, never calls out evil in our society, has let something far more sinister seep in and spread among your people, and you did nothing to stop it! Instead of being the salt of the earth, you have become the high fructose corn syrup that has made our society fatally unhealthy, and I am calling upon you to repent! 

Yes, you should love the person. Love them enough to confront their sin and call them to Christ. And yes, you should grow a backbone to perform the role of shepherd, who not only pets the sheep but takes out a sawed-off shotgun to take down the wolf. Repent, brother! 

THE RIGHT VIEW

4) THE BIBLICAL APPROACH 

Now, the right approach is the Biblical approach. Look at what Paul says about this: 

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. – Ephesians 6:12

Paul tells us that our struggle is not against the individuals caught in the nets of sin. Instead, our war is against the net makers, the wicked powers who are making the traps that drag men and women away to their doom (2 Timothy 2:26)! This certainly includes evil politicians, woke corporations, and degenerate government agencies who spend taxpayers money on evil. But Paul is alerting us to the power that is underneath them all and fueling them. He is telling us of the kind of power that caused Roman men to find it socially acceptable to abandon their female infants to the elements because they wanted a son. We are talking about the kind of power underneath the hubris of the Enlightenment, which captivated men’s hearts with scientific pride instead of humility before their God. We are talking about the elemental forces, the rouge spirits in high places, and the kind of power that gave birth to the bastard child named liberalism, who questions the authority and veracity of Holy Scripture. The kind of power that is underneath every godless movement, from the Freudian psychology that undermines faith in God to the Sangarian ethics inflicting genocide upon the womb to the Kinneyism that unleashed rank sexual perversions upon our populace. Paul is telling us that behind every Hitler, Stalin, and Mao, behind every pagan ideology and philosophy, and behind every movement that brings devastation and rebellion upon man are the demonic forces led by their commander Satan, who want nothing more than to destroy the masterpiece of God’s creation, man and woman. God called male and female – in covenant marriage, reproducing offspring to the glory of God, and extending His dominion to the ends of the earth – “very good,” the hounds of hell cannot keep themselves from trying to destroy us. It is in their nature, and we must resist them (James 4:7). 

LOVE THE SINNER. HATE THE MOVEMENT

I know this article may seem a tad inflammatory to you, but I make no apologies. I simply implore you not to be soft on movements like abortion and sexual deviancy. Because underneath them is the power of demons who want nothing more than to pervert, manipulate, butcher, and destroy God’s creatures. If you are soft on these movements, you are complicit with the war crimes of demons, and you are a reviler of the humanity you claim to love. 

Our job is to love the sinner enough to call them to repentance. And to hate the movements that accost them. Dear Christians, the mission Christ has called us to requires that we declare the true Biblical Gospel no matter who it offends and that we continue advancing until every sulfuric stinking gate of hell falls limply down. We aim as emissaries in His Kingdom to see all of Jesus’ enemies put under His feet. He will do that work, but He has also called us to be about that work (praying, declaring Christ, making disciples, having godly children, attending public worship, feasting at His table, etc. ). We live in the Kingdom of Christ and we pray to see abortion abolished so that no more child is decapitated in her mother’s womb. We labor in Jesus’ fields to see sodomy eliminated and a wholesome, godly, and covenantal view of sex and marriage proliferated. And as Christians, we do not bury our talents in the sand… We keep after it, worshipping, praying, seeking Him, and doing what He has commanded us to do until all two-spirit penguins are entirely extinct because we do not believe allowing people to live in their madness or delusions is healthy, proper, or holy. We labor till every family comes under the blessing of the Lord Jesus Christ, as promised to Abraham, and until our enemy is put swiftly under our saviors heel. Until that day, we must love people enough to herald the one true Gospel to them and we must hate the sinister movements sufficiently enough to work for their demise. No other behavior is Biblically legitimate.  

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close up of hands holding baby feet

On November 14, 2023 By In Culture

Where are the pro-life majorities?

Abortion is the deliberate ending of a pregnancy somewhere along the path between conception and birth, and it has been the subject of controversy for at least half a century, if not longer. In the United States, the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v Wade (1973) took the issue out of the hands of the several states and declared a constitutional right to abortion, the Court undoubtedly assuming that it had settled the issue for good. That proved to be a severe miscalculation because the ruling sparked an acrimonious division between those styling themselves pro-choice and pro-life. Pro-choicers argued that a woman has a right to her own bodily integrity and that this right includes the personal decision to end a pregnancy. Pro-lifers, to the contrary, argued that the foetus growing in the womb is a person who deserves to live and not merely a mass of tissue to be disposed of at will.

For a time, it seemed that the pro-life position had a demographic advantage. The argument went something like this:

Pro-lifers and pro-choicers represent two divergent subcultures. Pro-choicers are less likely to be religiously observant and generally have fewer children. They disproportionately inhabit the large urban centres where most abortion clinics are located. They are less persuaded by arguments that the unborn child is a human being worthy of protection and have a (religious!) belief in individual autonomy. Many pro-choicers do not even bother to marry and are content to live in childless relationships with members of the opposite sex.

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On November 1, 2023 By In Culture, Podcast

KC Podcast – Episode 118: Christians and Horror

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On January 3, 2023 By In Church, Culture

The Death of Mainline Churches

One of my predictions in 2023 is a relatively certain one. It pertains to the continual decline and fragmentation of Mainline Protestant Churches.

In the late ’90s, Thomas Reeves warned the liberal, mainline churches against “smug denominationalism.” He used C.S. Lewis’ language as a cautionary tale about the direction of liberalism both in the political and religious spheres. His book was aptly entitled “The Suicide of Liberal Christianity.”

In 2020, mainline Protestants were bleeding numerically, shutting down their ornate buildings, which were ironically transformed into modern pubs all over Europe. They possessed one of the “lowest retention rates in any tradition” (Pew Research). From 2007-2017, they lost over five million members, and the children of these members were going farther and farther away from any religious manifestation. But even back in 1996, Reeves noted that the decline of mainline churches has “been eroding for better part of this century.”

The culprit in the 20th century is the same in the 21st. According to Reeves, “their defining theological doctrines have been largely forgotten.” While there is a modicum of hope in Reeves’ 26-year-old book, he concludes with profound pessimism. Should the mainline churches continue unchanged in their direction, they will proceed “on their steady slide toward complete irrelevance (211).”

The mainline consisting of PCUSA, ELCA, American Baptists in the USA, United Methodists, etc., have taken trajectories of death throughout. They have sought to bestow power on inclusivism and anointed corrupt priests to lead the way, and to hell, they led.

Conservative ecclesial bodies must invest in catechetical discipleship and build a reservoir of resistance against liberalizing forces without and battle locally and nationally against such forces that seek to crawl their way into the midst of the assembly.

Reeves was right that smug denominationalism is a temptation for many of us. Many of our conservative churches have grown during supposed crises created to ensure complacency among the populace and within the church. But, in God’s kindness, never was reading leaves such an easy task.

The task of the conservative corpus is to seek the good of the city by building on that eternal city. In the midst of the tranquility of growth and theological prosperity, may we not grow weary in well-doing. Smugness tickles our vanity, but humility steadies our march.

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On October 31, 2022 By In Politics

Brazil’s Election and the Failure of the Evangelical Pastor

This is a sad day for my home country. Lula won a narrowly divisive runoff election this Sunday and will begin his third term as president at the age of 77. Convicted of corruption, he served 580 days in prison, and after his release, he became the symbol of victimhood.

He sought old partnerships and was able to reanimate a nation to the old causes of social transformation through the state. It didn’t matter the misery incurred by such policies in Venezuela, Cuba, or Argentina, Lula’s charm and political capital earned him overwhelming victory in the poorest part of my country, the Northeastern part (where I grew up). Lula functions in some ways like a Neo-Pentecostal leader who appeals to the poor through promises of prosperity, offering a Gospel as convoluted as a Marxian paradigm. And the people said, “Amen!”

Bolsonaro, on the other hand, was the Tropical Trump; if Trump could dance and recite the Lord’s Prayer, he would be the Orange Bolsonaro. Bolsonaro is equally charismatic as Lula, and the oddity of the whole thing is that wherever he went in the Northeast, he was received with immense approval. But politics is a tricky business. The people may love a candidate, political inclinations, or moral declarations, but they are easily seduced by flattery and promises of statist charity. I’d also happily admit to Bolsonaro’s number of blunders throughout, but the options were so universally contrary to one another, leaving Brazilians with no excuse.

The tremendous benefit is that this entire thing has awakened a conservative resurgence in my home country. Conservative principles are now much more common than before Bolsonaro’s election. I suspect the various movements will only continue to grow. Certainly, the environment is ripe for a conservative nationalism that sees Brazil’s interests, morally and economically, as the heart of a prosperous nation.

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On October 11, 2022 By In Church, Culture

A Creational Apologetic for Mockery

Several recent essays have offered a rich description of what has happened to the winsome phenomenon. Evangelical writers and theologians once known for defending the good have sought to minimize Gospel realities by maximizing opportunities for ecumenical endeavors. These endeavors did not produce the fruit expected, and, instead, it has led inevitably to the prodigalness of the evangelical left.

The result is a Babylonian conundrum leaving these figures defending the other side instead of protecting the voices most closely aligned with the cause of the Gospel. The winsome project has led to the adulteration of the good by compromising the good. My premise is that these authors have failed to see the Church’s role as that of protecting the creational order and priorities at all costs. These priorities negate the winsome strategy and advocate for something more distinctly aggressive regarding our relationship with ungodliness in this world.

To provide a bit of a rationale for what I call “A creational apologetic for mockery,” let me begin by offering some propositions and then conclude with some observations about the state of things in the Church.

First, I argue that creational theology compels us to use mockery against evil. Creation, by its very nature, is an apologetic against principalities and powers. Sun, moon, and stars are not merely heavenly descriptors but symbolic ones which proclaim the heavenly reality as the mode of operation for all of history. This reality presents the dignity of man, the labor of man, the complementarity of woman, and the establishment of priestly categories as fundamental antagonists to the attempts of evil men and their institutions to reverse the created order. Thus, the creation account supplants other accounts with an ideal established order and decency for both private and public arenas.

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On September 28, 2022 By In Church, Culture

#NATCON and David French

The National Conservatism movement has received much attention from various media publications. I have detailed my experience and annotations in the latest Perspectivalist podcast, and don’t want to belabor the point too much. Much of the work is being done in the background, and conversations about the future are happening all around.

One of the latest pieces on #NatCon2022 comes from The Dispatch, written by Alec Dent, representing the leftist side of the Evangelical/Roman Catholic wing. David French, the founder of this national media company has articulated a vision of politics that opposes any state imposition of a moral code. He even argues favorably for the liberty for drag queen hour in public libraries:

“There are going to be Drag Queen Story Hours. They’re going to happen. And, by the way, the fact that a person can get a room in a library and hold a Drag Queen Story Hour and get people to come? That’s one of the blessings of liberty,” French said.

Suffice it to say, my body of writing opposes such absurdities. I affirm that the very essence of the Christian faith compels the body politic to legislate Christian morality. Further, that deacons of righteousness exist to pass righteous laws. In my estimation, that entails removing obscenities like drag queen hour from all public spaces and spheres. The spheres belong to Jesus, and opposition to it is opposition to Jesus as Lord.

When I was invited to be interviewed by the journalist from the Dispatch, I came prepared to answer several different questions, and should I have taken the Doug Wilson approach, I should have recorded the 15-minute interview. But I learned a valuable lesson, and thankfully the author quoted me briefly but accurately while overlooking the body of my main points.

The concern from the Dispatch is that we build a movement that minimizes liberties for unchristian groups and unchristian practices. The goal, according to them, is to provide a society where social liberties are accepted in the public square and that Christians should advocate for a virtuous and winsome approach in our engagement.

But the Statement of Principles from National Conservatism offers a stark alternative, which is that “where a Christian majority exists, public life should be rooted in Christianity and its moral vision.” Even its main philosophical head, Yoram Hazony, a Jew, states that biblical Christianity should be the source of any society. He understands that America is a sea of Protestant, biblical faith, even though only 65% of the population identifies with Christianity.

When asked whether #NatCon favors the presence of atheists, the journalist quotes me:

Some national conservatives are still willing to work with the post-religious right—so long as everyone remembers who is running the show. “I wouldn’t mind them joining the cause, as long as they submitted to the general rules and principles thereof, which I think can be guided by sacred scriptures,” Rev. Uri Brito, who delivered one of NatCon 3’s benedictions, told The Dispatch. “I would not want to be a part of a movement where atheists are guiding that movement.”

The quotation is not inaccurate, though it misses my entire build-up to it. Fine and dandy. I reaffirm that there is no future in the United States where atheism is leading. I agree with R.R. Reno that atheists may find #NatCon appealing because of our defense of country and its priorities, but they will undoubtedly demur regarding faith and family.

In the interview, I delved further into other aspects of what a true nationalism should look like and proceed from, which is an ecclesial conservatism. I developed those in my ten theses over at Kuyperian and hope others may benefit from them as well. I argued with the Dispatch that fundamentally, any movement towards a Christian orientation must be ecclesially focused and that the first priority of any true Christian nationalist is that of worshipping the Triune God. I also spoke favorably about the resurgence of Christian, Classical education and how necessary it is to re-engage our Western tradition and train our children to see the West not as a curse but as a crucial piece of our history and that Christendom flourished through this history.

Overall, I am pleased to see intensified attention on #NatCon and the principles that undergird it, and hope to see these conversations even more prevalent in the days to come.

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On September 10, 2022 By In Church

The Case for Weekly Communion

Evangelicals like myself rooted in the Reformation came very late to the beauty of weekly communion. I was a sophomore in college before I realized that the vast stream of the Protestant tradition celebrated communion weekly. For most of my life, I assumed the table was reserved for special occasions like Easter or Christmas. In fact, I attended a Brethren congregation that did communion once a year. But as I broadened my theological interests, I understood the Supper’s function in the liturgy and in the theology of the church and it became unbearable to contemplate the absence of it during a worship service.

Historically, our Reformed forefathers—including Luther and Calvin—desired communion to be weekly. In fact, the early centuries of the Church and the majority of Protestant Churches in the 16th century practiced weekly communion. It was only in the 19th century, and in particular, during the Prohibitionist movement, that weekly communion became mostly obsolete. Therefore, the infrequent practice of communion is rather new in the church. This does not mean it’s wrong, but it should raise questions and it should challenge our assumptions about what the Bible actually says concerning the frequency of such practices.

The Didache, one of the earliest records of the church after the Bible says the following:

“On the Lord’s own day gather together and break bread and give thanks, having first confessed your sins so that your sacrifice may be pure.”

The Church believed that in celebrating the sacraments weekly, we become a purer people. This is not because there is something magical in the bread and wine but because God uses these means to communicate his presence and strength to us.

Additionally, the Early Church believed that the Lord’s Supper made us a more thankful people. We don’t often associate communion with thankfulness, but the very term “Eucharist” is not some invention of men. It is the word Paul uses to refer to the Lord’s Supper. The word means “thanksgiving.” The Lord’s Supper is a Thanksgiving meal; a Eucharistic meal.

The Bible makes a clear case that every time the people of God gathered for worship, the Lord’s Supper was a regular part of that gathering. Acts 2:42 says:

“And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.”

There is a definite article before bread, making the text read “the breaking of the bread” (τοῦ ἄρτου). This is not a generic reference to a household meal, but it is about a particular kind of bread, the eucharistic bread used at the Lord’s Table.

Acts 20:7 says: “And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of the bread and the prayers.”

Again, when the Early Church met, they always had the Lord’s Supper. In a time when persecution was rampant, the people needed to be comforted and give thanks to God as they ate together with God’s people in worship.

I had mentioned earlier that the Early Church, up to the first thousand years and later the Reformation, firmly believed in weekly communion. But there came a time when the Church abandoned this practice. In fact, as Keith Mathison observes in his book “Given For You,” Infrequent communion practice became the practice of the Roman Catholic Church in the 13th century and continued until the Reformation period. In those days, members could only partake of the sacraments once a year. It was against this background that “such men as John Calvin and Martin Bucer called for a return to the Apostolic Christian practice of weekly communion.”

We might say that part of the motive of the Reformation was to undo the Church’s practice of infrequent communion and return to the Early Church practice of weekly communion. Calvin writes in response to the common practices of the day:

“The Lord’s Table should have been spread at least once a week for the assembly of Christians, and the promises declared in it should feed us spiritually.”

Note Calvin’s use of the phrase “at least,” implying that there were other special occasions when the Supper was crucial in the formation of Church life besides the ordinariness of its practice on Sundays.

As Professor Michael Horton once observed, “Your view of the nature of the Lord’s Supper will determine the importance of it in the worship service.” It should come as no surprise then that those who view the Lord’s Supper primarily as a matter of subjective mental recollection would see no need to celebrate it frequently. But when we begin to view the Lord’s Supper as a meal of joy and a means of grace to sustain and nourish us, then we quickly begin to expect each Lord’s Day to conclude with a meal just as our day ends with Supper.

The Lord’s Supper is not a religious add-on to the regular worship service; it is an integral meal prepared for those who are called to minister to the world. The meal is a preparation for our tasks during the week.

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On September 3, 2022 By In Culture, Family and Children

Dispelling Hospitality Excuses 

Guest Post by Randy Booth

“Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil. Cling to what is good. 10 Be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love, in honor giving preference to one another; 11 not lagging in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord; 12 rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing steadfastly in prayer; 13 distributing to the needs of the saints, GIVEN TO HOSPITALITY.”

―Romans 12:9-13

It’s a common trait of humanity (even redeemed humanity) to sit in judgment of God’s word. It all started in the Garden of Eden, where our first parents wanted to decide what was and was not good for them. God has some pretty good suggestions, some of which we’re willing to follow, but in other matters, we’ll need to think about it a bit more. We do need to be pragmatic. God’s word might work out for a lot of people, but sometimes, my extenuating circumstances lead me to conclude that it’s not going to work for me. There are exceptions to the rules which can exempt me.

Now hospitality isn’t the only area where we’re tempted to think like this, but it is one of the common topics where excuses for not following the clear and simple command of Scripture are frequent. Like Adam and Eve, we think we know better than God what is good for us. Below are several commonplace excuses why we can’t be “GIVEN TO HOSPITALITY.” I hope to challenge them all.

1.       I’m Not Good at It.

We’re seldom good at the things we never do. Practice makes perfect. One of the reasons God wants us to be given to hospitality is so that we will get good at it. Less-than-perfect hospitality is still hospitality, and it is still obedience to God. Read a book (e.g., Face to Face, Steve Wilkins). Get some advice. Watch others who are good at it. Ask some questions. You can learn to do this. You can get better at it. But you can’t get better at it if you don’t do it. You know what to do (i.e., be “GIVEN TO HOSPITALITY”), now set out to learn how to do it. If needed, get some help doing it. If you do these things, the only reason left for not doing it is, “I don’t want to do it.” That would be a sin.

2.       My House is Too Small.

Your house can’t be that small. It might be crowded, but I’m pretty sure that many saints from the past, who were GIVEN TO HOSPITALITY, had houses smaller than yours. If you’re an American, your house is probably bigger than the houses of most Christians in the world. Moreover, you don’t even have to have a house to be hospitable; have a picnic!

3.       My House is Too Dirty.

If your house is dirty, there are two options: 1) clean your house; 2) swallow your pride and have people over to your dirty house. The command to be GIVEN TO HOSPITALITY is not a conditional command. God doesn’t say, “Be GIVEN TO HOSPITALITY if your house is clean.” Cleaning your house is an option; showing hospitality is not an option.

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On August 23, 2022 By In Church

Ten Theses for an Ecclesiastical Conservativism

At a very practical level, the Evangelical Church has been injected with counterfeit spiritualities. We are a people looking for a city whose builder may only be in office for four years. Our temptation to veer to the side of the temporal is striking in our day, especially as the modern evangelical church founded largely by the disciples of the Billy Graham crusades willingly imbibes a distant ecclesiology from our Reformed forefathers.

For whatever reason, many have simply given up on the Church as a means of salvation or as a motherly figure (Gal. 4;26). The result has been a radical shift into politics and pundits as deliverers of human woes while forgetting the Table and Sacred Time.

But we should not be overly critical of only the evangelical enterprise in this country. We should be quick also to overturn the tables of those who opine sophisticated about the Church and her principles regulated by the New Testament alone and who view the endeavors of earthly politics to conflict with a spiritual kingdom.

These evangelicals, however well they dress their theological discourse, offer little to combat the profound changes in the ethical standards of our country. I am a Reformed, Evangelical Christian with the bona fides to prove it and the letters of recommendation from a fine seminary. I do not affirm the hierarchical structures of Rome or Constantinople, nor do I fall into the two alternatives listed above.

What we have before us is a time to go back to basics, especially if ecclesiastical anarchism becomes the norm in our age. Therefore, it seems good and wise to provide some basic theses on the prospect of a new American evangelicalism that does not despise the church, and which sees her role as fundamental in the re-shaping of the current political experience.

Therefore, I offer ten theses on this relationship:

Thesis I: Ecclesiastical Conservatism begins thinking about politics first as a churchman and then as a citizen of the body politic. His loyalty is first as a worshiper and then to his responsibilities to think about the politics of the day. The first must flow into the other and not the reverse. Our temptation to view government as the answer is a sign that we are eager to give up the role of the Church in society.

Conservatism observes the expansion of the state and the overreach of the government in areas where the Church should be independent. We, therefore, oppose such actions and accept that our fundamental duty is to obey God rather than man.

Thesis II: Ecclesiastical Conservatism affirms that the Church is central to the purposes of God in the kingdom and that from her flows the wisdom of God to the world (Eph. 3:10). Wisdom comes from above through the lips of ministers and the gifts of bread and wine. The lessons or rituals from D.C. should never take precedence over the Church.

Thesis III: Ecclesiastical Conservatism does not embrace the civic calendar as her first order of business. It does not embrace the flag over the cross nor the pledge of allegiance over our pledge to the Christian Creeds. We do not substitute the worship of heaven for the worship of political victors. For this reason, candidates for local and national offices must have as one of their central priorities the freedom of the Church to be who God called her to be on earth (Mat. 28:18-20).

Thesis IV: Ecclesiastical Conservatism prays for her leaders every Sunday (I Tim. 2:1-3). If a Church’s political orientation does not acknowledge the Pauline necessity to pray for the good of the country through whatever leader sits in the White House, she is violating the primary focus of Ecclesiastical Conservatism, which is to be faithful to the commands of the Bible whether the Left or the Right is in power.

Thesis V: Ecclesiastical Conservatism cannot abide by the murder of the unborn, even if it becomes “the law of the land” or if it has the word “precedent” behind its laws. Further, there is no justification to vote for leaders who violate this fundamental assertion outright and whose trajectory contradicts this basic thesis. This thesis should be the starting point of any ethical understanding of politics. We rejoice with the overturn of Roe and Casey and diligently pursue to see that all 50 states abolish abortion laws within their constitutions.

Thesis VI: Ecclesiastical Conservatism understands the difficult decisions of parishioners in dealing with flawed candidates. Yet, we are not called to abdicate our role as citizens placed in a particular place in history (Acts 17:26). We believe Christians are called to make difficult decisions based on the body of information available and carefully contemplating the wisdom of their elders in the Church and people of good reputation in the community.

Thesis VII: Ecclesiastical Conservatism does not escape politics but embraces it as an expression of his faith in the world. We do not embrace a Gnostic view of history, nor do we embrace the ideology that says our disposition towards cultural and political things is divorced from our faith expressed amidst the congregation. Our faith as churchmen and churchwomen is carried out in the voting booth.

Thesis VIII: Ecclesiastical Conservatism does not put its trust in horses and chariots, but neither does it abdicate its trust that God rules over horses and chariots. God uses the power structure of Government to bring about his purpose of justice on earth (Rom. 13), and he acts by his divine providence according to the history of that body politic, whether they obey God or forsake his commandments.

Thesis IX: Ecclesiastical Conservatism is not a call to revolution through arms but revolution through the armor of God (Gal. 5). We put on the faith through song and sober living (I Thes. 5), which means that our primary tasks are more local among the body of people we call Church.

Thesis X: Ecclesiastical Conservatism views the first day of the week as the central day for the formation of his political thinking and doing. If his concerns display a greater interest in the things of the world over the things of the Church, he has committed idolatry and embraced a lie. He is, above all, a servant and worshiper of the Most High God to whom all praise and glory belong now and forever. Amen.

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