Godly Resistance, Part III

In the Footsteps of Priscilla and Aquila

It is possible for Unbelievers to become justly frustrated and angry against Christians.  When we are obnoxious, impatient, or bitter in our opposing Unbelief, for example, Unbelief may have just cause for criticism.  Therefore, in standing for the truth, and for the Lord's holy Name, we must be sure that our cause is not only just, but also justly argued.

As we enter a time when we more frequently find ourselves needing to adopt a no-compromise position, it is important that our consciences are clear.  Moreover, when we are ridiculed for the Christian positions we take we ought to bear it with patience, giving thanks to God that we are counted sufficiently worthy to suffer for His Name.

We made mention the other day of secularists mocking and scorning the US Vice President and his wife for adopting practices which they find objectionable or offensive. These nonsense reactions and criticisms we must bear patiently.  However, w must also be firm.  Our retort ought to be along the lines of, "It's none of your business."  We must also make it clear that we will not yield in the face of such prejudice and provocation.

What ever else we do, we must avoid a "go along to get along" approach over matters of divine command and Christian conscience.  When we become "man-pleasers" we have compromised our position beyond repair.

Quiet, firm, resolute, courageous resistance must be the order of the day.  From the outset.

We are aware that as society becomes more and more enamoured with the religion of secularism, resistance may cost us a pretty penny.  It may mean we lose our jobs.  It may mean we have to end up moving home and family to a more tolerant and accommodating city or region.  Like Priscilla and Aquila we may have to flee Rome.

So it has ever been.

Godly Resistance, Part II

Choose You This Day Whom You Will Serve

In yesterday's post we reviewed what sort of man or woman is required to answer the call to resist militant, public square Unbelief.  Douglas Wilson argued that we need (and by God's grace will receive) people who are stubbornly resistance to compromise. 

We are not to understand this as a call for Christians to be universal and perpetual nit-pickers. Rather, when it comes to beliefs and practices which violate the undoubted teaching of Holy Writ, the True Church must resist without compromise.  Wilson argues that we are close to the tipping point. 

A related article has recently been published.  It points to an example of one politician, the US Vice President Mike Pence who has walked that walk.  He is stubbornly unwilling to compromise on some things and beliefs central to his commitment as a disciple of Christ. 

This example illustrates the kind of attitudes Douglas Wilson is calling for. 

Aaron Colen writes

What's wrong with Mike Pence?

Pence is often accused of being "anti-LGBTQ." He has affirmed the Christian belief that marriage is between a man and a woman. He fought for religious freedom as governor of Indiana. He opposed the Obama administration directive that required schools to allow students to use bathrooms according to gender identity rather than biological sex.

He and his wife, Karen, recently faced criticism because the Second Lady teaches at a private Christian school that requires applicants to affirm the belief that marriage is between one man and one woman, and which bans any sexual activity outside of marriage, whether homosexual or heterosexual.

Pence has a personal policy, one shared by some church pastors, of not dining alone with a woman who is not his wife, which made him the source of numerous mocking or critical articles that called the policy sexist or indicated that Pence may lack self-control.

Democrats believe President Donald Trump is a racist, lying, treasonous criminal who is unqualified for the job and who deserves to be removed from office and possibly thrown into prison. But some of those same Democrats also question whether removing Trump is the right decision—because they believe Pence is worse.

Mike Pence's sin in the eyes of his political and ideological opponents is that he's too Christian.

Godly Resistance, Part I

Cometh the Hour, Cometh the Man

The struggle between Belief breaks out into the open in the media, the first thing that happens is that the Church is purified. 

Those who all along have been fellow-travellers, or nominal Christians, fall away.  They rationalise their compromises and seek out new allies.  Meanwhile, genuine Christian folk, with their eyes fixed upon Christ and King and an eternity of blessed service and fellowship with Him, double down in believing faith and practice.

This is the way it has always been.  We are going to make reference to two examples of faithful doubling down.  The first is an abbreviated piece written by Douglas Wilson.  It argues the need for rock solid resistance to compromise and man-pleasing.  It is to be a case of "cometh the hour, cometh the man."

Intransigence as the Key to Reform

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 2019 BY DOUGLAS WILSON

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One of the features of modern life together, one that requires some explanation, is our apparent limitless capacity to adapt to absurdity. Examples surround us on every hand, but let’s take the fact of tranny boys running in girls’ track meets. And lo! It turns out that boys are better at being girl runners than the girls are. I don’t know what the girls thought they were doing all this time.

Taking a detached and scientific approach to this, we see that it is nuts. Not only is it nuts, but virtually everyone in the world knows that it is nuts. And when I say nuts, I mean bonkers, crazy, deranged, demented, around the bend, unzipped, barmy, psycho, and just plain stupid. I trust I have made my meaning clear? Entering bio-boys in bio-girls events is bat-guano daft.

Beware The Dangers of Hobby-Horsing

Full Disclosure Needed

Now that the dust has settled in the matter of Alabama's election of a US Senator a number of broader issues have bubbled up in the Christian community.  Hopefully, these matters will be confronted faithfully by the saints.  

Firstly, some background.  Roy Moore was put forward as the Republican candidate in a special election for the US Senate.  He was accused by a number of women of immoral, if not illegal sexual activity forty years ago.  Although he had held high public office in Alabama over a number of years, nothing like this had surfaced before.  It turns out he was narrowly defeated.  If he had won Christians would have been involved in sending him to represent them in the US Senate.

Thus a debate began amongst Christians, particularly leaders and mover-and-shakers.  On the one side were those who insisted that whatever breaches of morality occurred forty years ago on the part of candidate Roy Moore it was time to apply some kind of statute of limitations.  Others added that an allegation does not a conviction make nor proven guilt establish.

The Gospel Coalition (TGC) is a group of evangelical Christian leaders who support each other both formally and informally and who work together on issues of mutual and shared interest in the United States.  A lot of their work has to do with promoting Jesus Christ and the Christian faith in the public square.  A number of the known leaders have spoken out strongly and publicly against Roy Moore and excoriated Christian for supporting him.

Let us grant them their case. Roy Moore, alleged sexual pervert, unfit to serve let alone honoured.  Let all Christians remove their hankies from their pockets and hold them firmly over their noses.  Not so fast.  Maybe, but maybe not.  Why?

Hard Men Taking the Paths of the Dead

The Boniface Option

Andrew Isker
Kuyperian Commentary

Nearly thirteen centuries ago, my ancestors, the people east of the Rhine, were tribal, pagan savages. They were not nice people.  They worshipped the Norse gods like Thor and Odin and had tattoos all over their bodies marking their devotion to him and their devotion to their tribe. Like most tribal societies, anyone who was not part of the tribe was more or less subhuman and fit for being robbed, murdered, and/or raped. They practiced human sacrifice. They weren’t all that different from ISIS today.

Into this world went a humble Benedictine monk named Winfrid. He left the cloister to become a missionary. Pope Gregory II appointed this missionary monk as bishop of then-pagan Germania and gave him a new name: Boniface. Boniface went through Germania preaching the gospel and destroying pagan idols and shrines and leaving churches in their place. The pagans he converted were my ancestors.

And to their great shrine venerated by these people Boniface went: to the Oak of Thor, where my ancestors sacrificed to their god of thunder.

Douglas Wilson's Letter From Moscow

On Not Fitting In at Their Missile Parade

Douglas Wilson
Blog&Mablog

A few years back I wrote about the lawfulness of lying in certain circumstances. But it also goes without saying that the prohibition of false witness is in the Ten Commandments, and that unlawful lying is a big deal.

Yesterday I wrote about Airbnb’s mandatory confession of faith before they will allow you to do business through them. Is it lawful to click that you agree, when in fact you do not agree? Is that “going underground” or is that simply being a lame Christian? Is that lawful deception or is it something less noble? This is far from an academic issue, particularly for Christians who work for large fairy-friendly corporations. There are multiple opportunities for the diversity officer to show up at your cubicle, in order to help the company stamp out diversity. But the diversity officer does not just want you to not rock the boat—he wants you to agree. You must sign off. You have to applaud. “We here in the Acme Widget community want to do our part to make this whole movement a little bit more like a North Korean missile parade.”

So is clicking Airbnb’s inane and contradictory affirmation the equivalent of clicking that you have read all of Apple’s most recent terms and conditions? Or is something much bigger at stake?

If the Gestapo ask you if you have Jews hidden in a secret room in your basement, and you do, you do not have to thank them for the opportunity to come clean. But if that same officer tells you to blaspheme the name of Christ in front of him, you must absolutely refuse.

Douglas Wilson's Letter From Moscow

The Least Important Election in Our Lifetime

Douglas Wilson
Blog&Mablog

INTRODUCTION

Important elections are those in which you are deciding whether to go north by northeast or south by southwest. Important elections are the ones in which you decide whether to go thissaway or thattaway. Important elections are held on Mount Carmel, with the candidates being Jehovah and Baal.

Important elections are not elections in which millions of people are deciding how to pick up the only available turd, and their dispute is over which end is the cleaner end. Ours is the kind of election that only occurs when all the crucial decisions have been made decades before.vote-for-pedro

Important elections, in other words, are elections in which decisions are actually made. This election is nothing more than a slow motion manifestation of the decisions we have already made, decisions we began making many decades ago. Trying to come up with a “responsible choice” at this stage in our cultural devolution is trying to choreograph a judgment, trying to turn a full-blown riot into West Side Story.

So in one sense, this is the least important election in our lifetime. When it comes to elections, we have already made our decisions. In another sense, this is a crucial time in the life of our nation.

MAWS WHAT HE SAWS

As the Scots Bible puts it i the Buik, God is not mocked.

Douglas Wilson's Letter From Moscow (Offering a Defense Against Wowsers)

Beyond the Pale Of Self-Respectability

On the Attempted Defenestration of Mablog Through the Overton Window

Douglas Wilson
Blog&Mablog

So then first, what is this Overton Window? That window, named after Joseph “Wiki” Overton — who coined the phrase — refers to the range of ideas that are palatable, thinkable, acceptable, or otherwise within the pale, when it comes to public discourse. Outside the window, you’re just a hate-filled weirdo. In the area of the curtains, you’re an extremist but they will still deal with you.

Now we live in unstable times, which means that the window moves around. Some powerful forces want this to represent a drastic cultural remodel, an extreme makeover, and so they want to put the window clear on the other side of the house now. Think about it. Five years ago, how many people even knew what transgenderism was? And yet now we must be seething with hatred because we don’t want some disturbed guy in a Minnie Pearl hat peeing in the same room as our five-year-old daughter.