Tag Archives: pastors

It’s Past Time You Got in the Game

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I read recently that Christians in Oregon are no longer allowed by law to adopt unless they agree to the state’s radical gender ideology. But a Christian can’t do that, not in good conscience, at least. I’ll likely take a long way back around to this point, and so in the meantime, I wonder if you’ve ever heard of Rev. Jason Lee, the Methodist missionary who led the effort to see Oregon annexed by the United States. For the record, while Lee’s diary doesn’t speak about the annexation, it does record his support for Oregon joining the Union. He believed that by partnering with the United States, his missionary efforts to the Native Americans could only be helped.

That’s an interesting factoid concerning Oregon’s statehood. A Christian pastor helped make it happen, and the United States government followed his lead, one fixed on the Gospel.

I mentioned in passing during last week’s sermon that I think I’ve read more in the last sixteen months of studying for my doctorate than I did in all my years of college and at seminary combined. I wasn’t kidding. My dissertation’s usable bibliography has 239 books, articles, reports, and the like, and I haven’t even begun the third of its five chapters. Of course, some of the resources I’ve only skimmed. Still, most I’ve read completely.

I’m not sure if you’re at all interested, but as I mentioned, the typical doctoral dissertation has five chapters. While the first chapter tees everything up, Chapter Two is the part that really sets the stage. Chapter Two establishes the conceptual framework, beginning with a thorough review of all the available literature. My study focuses on Two Kingdoms theology, primarily Church and State engagement. I recently finished Chapter Two, and as I’ve been told, it’s about three times the length expected. This is not a vain statement. I share it to show I’ve put a lot of work into ensuring I’m familiar with anything and everything relative to my thesis.

As you can probably guess, many discoveries have been made along the way. While not necessarily central to my effort, one relatively widespread speculation I now unequivocally categorize as debunked is the assertion that America’s founding fathers were principally Deists. Again, it doesn’t matter all that much to my effort. However, a side result of my literature review has proven it fabricated.

Interestingly, the idea doesn’t appear on the scene until the early to mid-20th century, and only then is it considered a tactic more so than a truth. In other words, the folks pressing for absolute separationism (the complete removal of the Church’s voice in the public square) are the ones driving the idea, some even rewriting crucial statements from critical Founders to secure the premise. By the way, do you know who else was doing this? Early American Marxists, and for the same reasons.

That’s just a little bit of what I discovered. Now, as the usual decriers hop onto the internet to assemble quick arguments against it, I will take a sip of coffee and continue.

Admittedly, it is true that some of the Founders were Deists. Still, that needs clarification. The term “Deism” itself wasn’t really in use during the time of the American Revolution. While there indeed were individuals who held Deistic beliefs—some of whom were quite notable—even when the term was used, it didn’t have the same connotations or associations as today. That’s a pretty important part of the discussion. Today, Deism is plainly associated with a specific set of beliefs. For example, Deists believe that while God created the universe, He doesn’t intervene in human affairs. Deists also deny the divinity of Christ, along with countless other cultic dogmas. However, even the prominent Founders so often labeled devout Deists didn’t actually believe these things during the American Revolution. Again, some did. But most didn’t. In certain respects, that disqualifies the label’s application. But to learn these things, more than internet snippets are required. You need time with what they and their observing biographers recorded. For example, there are many opinions concerning Rev. Jason Lee’s reasons for engaging in government as he did. His diary is a far better source than an agenda-driven professor from the 1960s.

But even beyond the usual suspects, the more significant majority of Founders responsible for the nation’s design—many of whom are unknown by comparison to the usual suspects—this majority did the heavy lifting. They were crucial in designing and building the American ship, hoisting its sails, and putting it to sea. This majority was unequivocally Christian. Not Muslim. Not Jewish. Not Buddhist. Christian. That’s not being exclusionist. It’s simply being honest. From the founding documents’ authors to signers to justices to cabinet secretaries to military leaders, these captains and crew members were a mish-mash of creedal believers from various Christian denominations. Did they have doctrinal differences among them? Yes. Still, they confessed the Triune God, proclaimed Christ as the divine Son of God and the essentiality of faith in Him for salvation, held fast to the sacramental things as the mysteriously miraculous gifts they are, and so on.

By the way, when I say “majority,” I mean 99%. That being said, an honest historian won’t centralize and label a nation’s innermost identity and destiny based on the ideologies of its 1%. But a dishonest one would. A dishonest one (or, at a minimum, an ignorant one) would insist America was founded on Deism, and so would those fooled by such a historian’s destabilization of truth.

And there you have it—a postmodern, radically individualized America destabilized by a lunatic fringe laboring to separate her from her genuine identity by destabilizing truth. A man can be a woman. All white people are inherently racist. Murdering unborn babies is healthcare. The Church has no right to influence political discussion. And so on.

It doesn’t have to be this way. The obnoxiously loud 1% would be no match for the 99%, even if only a portion of the majority had the slightest fraction of the Founders’ courage to speak and act.

But that’ll forever be a problem, especially when the seeds of America’s garden—the churches—are occupied by pastors who buy into the Deist, and ultimately the absolute separationist, claims.

I recently told my daughter, Evelyn, the story of Major General (John) Peter Muhlenberg. When she heard how Muhlenberg, a Lutheran pastor, stood before his congregation and preached in a way that inspired the men of his congregation to join him in the fight, she felt a strange craving to read all about him. I’ve since given her a few books. She’s going to discover along the way one unique detail. She’s going to learn about Peter’s brother, Frederick, a pastor in New York. Frederick was not happy with Peter. He believed the Church, especially her ministers, had no right to speak about, let alone engage in, civil affairs. He openly denounced his brother’s enthusiasm on multiple occasions.

But then, one day, the British surrounded Frederick’s church and burned it. Rev. Frederick Muhlenberg eventually became the first Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, avidly supporting the importance of Church and State engagement. Of course, he learned this the hard way. Like Frederick, a pastor in the shadows will have had plentiful opportunities to enjoy what the Founders gave us, regardless of their individual beliefs: religious liberty.

Concerning these things, I suppose I should at least encourage you: if you hear an insistent pastor enforcing the Deist claim, and you feel like challenging him, do it. Challenge him. Because, well, he’s wrong. Make sure you tell him as much. Simply put, he’s bought into a dangerous tactic key to the separationist premise leading to religious liberty’s demise. This is dangerous, and we can see where it’s headed. Again, I just read that Christian parents in Oregon seeking to adopt must sign an agreement saying they accept the state’s radical gender ideology. As I said before, Christians can’t do that in good conscience. So, how will these families adopt? Go out of state? Stay in the state and do it illegally? I don’t know for sure. Either way, they’ve already started living the Gospel in the shadows. Perhaps a stronger Christian voice in the public square—one like Rev. Lee’s—could’ve changed that. When pastors buy into the radical left’s insistence that the Church must remain silent in civil affairs, the Christians they lead are harmed, not helped, and the floodgates to anything and everything counter to America’s actual foundation on essential and objective truths are opened.

Speak up. Get engaged. It’s more than past time you do.

Truth Can Win

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I’m guessing you heard the news about Jussie Smollett. He’s an actor who claimed he was attacked by two white men in Chicago because he’s both black and gay. He said they hit him, used bigoted slurs, put a noose around his neck, poured an unknown substance on him, and shouted, “This is MAGA country!”

Almost as soon as his story made the news, he was the golden child of the Democrats and the progressive Left who, together with their partners in the mainstream media, were doing all they could (and still are) to frame conservative America as deeply intolerant and unforgivably racist. Suddenly, Smollett’s relatively less-than-profound career had found powerful traction. He became a prominent guest at events, went on talk shows, and was even granted a primetime interview with ABC News’ Robin Roberts.

I watched the interview. Smollett cranked up the emotion and Roberts fawned, almost grotesquely. It was hard to watch, and not because I sympathized with him, or because I felt shame for being a conservative, but because something wasn’t right with Smollett’s story. Like so many others who watched it, I didn’t believe what he was saying. The thing is, much of the law enforcement community involved with the situation disbelieved him, too. Still, a few higher ranking officials in Cook County managed to pull enough strings to shield their celebrity friend from any attempts to reveal what was, even in their minds, looking to be a hoax.

Eventually, the tables turned. A fair-minded prosecutor was presented with the evidence, namely, that the men involved in the supposed attack were not even white, but black, and Smollett actually hired them. As it would go, Smollett was charged with six counts of orchestrating a hate crime against himself. Last week, the case and its facts unfolded before twelve jurors, and on Thursday, Smollett was found guilty of five of the six counts. Truth defeated untruth.

But it almost didn’t, which I’ll get to in a moment. First, I’ll let you in on a little secret—and I’ll bet it’s one to which others who do what I do for a living would likely nod in agreement.

It’s likely the reason I choked on the believability of Smollett’s interview with Robin Roberts is because pastors are pretty good at spotting liars.

If the job is being done right, no small portion of a pastor’s time involves interfacing with the underbelly of Sin’s grossest offenses. Lies rule in this realm. In one sense, this is true because the devil, the father of lies (John 8:44), labors tirelessly to maintain this dimly lit kingdom. Pastors know this. They know he uses lies like a model maker uses glue, connecting this and that misshaped part to create a seemingly insurmountable monstrosity that’s eventually found capable of hiding truth in its shadow. Still, I won’t place all of the blame on him. Even without his crafty influence, sinful humanity is more than capable of maintaining a kingdom of deceit. The Sin-nature is a powerful wellspring that feeds every human being’s ability to lie to others, and perhaps most disturbingly, to lie to oneself. What’s most troubling about this tendency is not only that it so often demonstrates itself with a twisted joyfulness—as if to suggest that without the ability to lie, humanity would be overcome by boredom—but that lying seems to be the first thing people will do to acquire what he or she wants, or to defend what he or she already believes.

Again, if pastors are doing their jobs, it’s likely they know the telltale signs of deception. They know the signs because they’ve heard and seen the same forms of dishonesty in countless situations. For example, all too often the man who confesses to having fallen out of love with his wife eventually proves he’s had eyes for another woman all along. He didn’t fall out of love. He lied to justify his desires and get what he wanted. Pastors see this all the time. Another example that repeats itself: It’s not uncommon for disgruntled church members to blame their unhappiness (or non-existence) on the pastor or a fellow member of the church community, landing on just about anything they’ve done or said as cold, unloving, or offensive. In my experience, the disconnect usually has to do with the wayward person’s desire to embrace an ideology or behavior contrary to God’s will and Word. It’s only after the pastor and church community have spoken truthfully to the errant Christian about the dangers of his or her living that the trouble begins. It’s then that the ones reaching with the truth are no longer counted as friends, but rather as unloving accusers. And yet, they’re not unloving. That’s a lie. They’re being faithful to both God and neighbor. They’re seeing a fellow Christian in need, and rather than closing their hearts to the opportunity for expressing God’s loving concern, they act. As Saint John points out, they epitomize love “in deed and truth” (1 John 3:17-18). On the contrary, the one who stubbornly refuses the truth is living in a perpetual darkness ruled by lies (1 John 1:6-9).

I could go on and on sharing similar examples, but I promised an explanation to my previous comment about truth nearly losing to untruth in the Jussie Smollett situation. What I meant is that if those who knew the facts had decided not to go the extra mile for truth, had those who were bothered by the lie being guarded by the people in power chosen to remain silent, an already monstrous narrative of untruth would have gained a deeper footing in America. But honest people took a chance at confronting dishonesty. They took a chance at offending the false narrative. They pursued truth, and truth won.

We can learn from these nameless advocates.

By their diligence, a deception was uprooted, and justice was served. What’s more, the blast radius of truth’s detonation revealed the scoundrels intent on weaponizing the lie. Thankfully, those frauds were silenced. Whether or not those same people are dealing honestly with themselves when it comes to public opinion, I don’t know. I will say that until they come clean, they’ll continue to simmer in their own foolishness in a glaring way. In other words, if I were Robin Roberts, or any of the other liberally progressive automatons who condemned anyone who questioned the verity of Smollett’s story—and this includes Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and countless other ever-droning agendizers in government, Hollywood, and mainstream news and entertainment outlets—I’d apologize to America soon, all with the hope that my gushing foolishness would be soon forgotten. I’m sure the social media giants at Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube are certainly doing whatever they can to help scrub the crime scenes.

In the end, my real hope is that the shame these people are experiencing will not only shepherd them toward honesty, but will encourage them to measure their responses in the future. Admittedly, my hopes are not high in these regards.

So, why bring any of this up? Well…

A man is a man. A woman is a woman. Stand up to the lies that claim otherwise. Maybe take a chance and write a letter to the NCAA. Push back against their woke policies allowing transgenders to hijack women’s sports, ultimately stealing away so many well-deserving female athletes’ aspirations. The Smollett case has shown us that truth can win.

A person is not inherently evil because of the color of his or her skin. Fight in your communities and school districts against the deceptive race theories that claim otherwise. Go to the school board meetings. Call your local representatives. Do these things knowing truth can win.

An unborn child is a unique person, both dignified and worthy of life. Muster as much muscle as you can against the pro-choice devilry that would call this untrue. Get involved with your local Right to Life chapter. Give of your time and treasure to the cause. Be present at the gates of a Planned Parenthood to pray. Do this. As we’ve seen, truth can win.

Again, I could go on and on with this. The list of topics that would benefit from truth’s pushback is long. And yes, it also includes much of the pseudo-science that’s driving so much of what Americans are being required to endure these days. Against these looming deceptions, know that truth is forced into the shadows when those who are to be its hands, feet, and voice remain quietly indolent. Perhaps worse, truth teeters at the edge of burial when we wait for someone else to act.

I suppose in conclusion, whether any of us chooses to engage on behalf of truth, we can all rest assured that truth won’t settle for our disregard indefinitely. It certainly won’t forever tolerate those in the Christian community who, having been offended by it, take their marbles and go somewhere else. As I’ve said on countless occasions from the pulpit here at Our Savior, eventually the Last Day will come and the divine light switch will get flipped. In the bright-beaming streams of Christ’s return, even as every human being alive and dead will be found on their knees paying homage to the approaching King of Kings, all will see and know what is true and what isn’t. Joy or regret will be the two available emotions as all deceptions are stripped away and the final standards of judgment are laid unquestionably bare. By God’s grace at work through His revealing Word right now, Christians are equipped for that day. Through faith in Christ—the One who is truth in the flesh (John 14:6)—we are not only rescued from the perils of Sin and the regret it brings, but we are given hope for that moment of moments. Just as wonderfully, we are changed to know and desire truth in the here and now (John 8:32; James 1:18), and we are equipped by the Holy Spirit to protect and defend what is true (1 John 4:6).

By that same Gospel of deliverance in Christ alone, be strengthened to stand for truth. I say this knowing that if anyone is truly destined for the job, indeed, it’s Christians.