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Eucatastrophe, Charlie Kirk, and the Gospel

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When faced with incomprehensible tragedy an encouraging concept to keep at the forefront of your mind is eucatastrophe. This was a term coined by J. R. R. Tolkien in his essay “On Fairy Stories.” He describes it as “the good catastrophe . . . a sudden and miraculous grace: never to be counted on to recur.” One need look no further than in The Lord of the Rings when Frodo fails his quest, is attacked by Gollum, and Gollum finally recovers “the precious” only to tumble off the precipice and thereby unwittingly defeat Sauron.

The eucatastrophe of the cosmos is the crucifixion and death of Jesus Christ. In that moment when all hope is lost, when the forces of evil triumph, “a sudden and miraculous grace, never to be counted on to recur,” occurs and the very instrument of His death becomes the very instrument by which Christ redeems creation “as far as the curse if found.”

This is what we have witnessed over the past week in the death of Charlie Kirk. Wicked men plotted to silence Charlie’s testimony. They sought to silence the Gospel he proclaimed. Their great act of evil to kill a Christian man only made him a martyr and brought even more attention to the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ. The algorithm was flooded with Charlie’s debates, podcasts, and sermons. Many who would have never listened to him tuned in and watched hours of him countering the culture’s lies and clearly presenting the gospel. Numerous individuals went and highlighted his testimony, proclaimed the gospel, read scripture on television and various forms of media. Vice President J. D. Vance even recited the Nicene Creed as he stood in for Charlie as a guest host on his show the Monday after his death.

Rejoice and be encouraged fellow Christian because what wicked men meant for evil God meant for good, because we can cast our cares upon Him and He will exalt us at the proper time, and because God works all things for our good.

Genesis 50:20

“As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.”

1 Peter 5:6-7

“Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.”

Romans 8:28

“And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.”

Why were most churches wrong on Covid? 

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None of this should be new if you have followed me for the past four years. I made these diagnoses both during the lockdowns as well as during the aftermath. I read voraciously and studied extensively looking at everything from medical journals, interviews with medical and research staff, world history, church history, political theology, and the text of Scripture. 

In no particular order the reasons why most churches were wrong on Covid are as follows. I will list them here in a group and then expand on each idea below. 

  • Tim Keller and Winsome Cultural Engagement
  • The Effeminacy of the Evangelical Pastorate
  • Deferral to Big Eva Influencers like TGC, CT, and the ERLC
  • Deferral to Big Pharma and Big Government
  • Historical and Theological Ignorance

Tim Keller and Winsome Cultural Engagement 

Probably a good overview on this is James R. Wood’s article “How I Evolved on Tim Keller” over at First Things. 

“[Keller] has famously emphasized that Christianity is “neither left nor right,” instead promoting a “third way” approach that attempts to avoid tribal partisanship and the toxic culture wars in hopes that more people will give the gospel a fair hearing.” 

Keller was a pastor in New York City so this strategy wasn’t designed in hopes of avoiding tribal partisanship so that conservatives would give the gospel a fair hearing. No, this was an intentional strategy that catered to the sensibilities of leftist cultural elites. So how bad was it? USA Today columnist Kirsten Powers wrote that Keller never spoke of homosexuality or abortion being sins from the pulpit and that eventually she left the church and the faith once she found out these were key beliefs. What Keller peddled as winsomeness was little more deceptively pandering to leftists that inevitably lead them to be justifiably bitter and resentful. 

The go along to get along methodology of Keller carried over into how many evangelicals addressed Covid. Again, they are not worried about offending conservatives. This is a big city strategy designed to patronize leftists. The majority of churches did what would impress leftists; they locked down, masked up, got the jab, and never spoke a word of discontent. 

Deferral to Big Eva Influencers like TGC, CT, and the ERLC 

This is clearly connected to Tim Keller above as these organizations and those like them have fully embraced Keller’s third way methodology. But thanks to the research of Megan Basham we know it didn’t just stop at the third way no there was something far more sinister and far more lucrative at play within these organizations. Every one of these organizations was bought by and caught up in a web of leftist cultural elites, corporations, and organizations funneling millions of dollars into transforming the ideology and theology of denominations, parachurch organizations, publishers, churches, and mega church pastors. Megan Basham has thoroughly documented these efforts in her book “Shepherds for Sale.” 

The end result of all this was mega churches championing lockdowns, Big Eva elites pushing the vaccine, publishers weaponizing empathy in various poorly reasoned love thy neighbor arguments. One of the most disgusting acts of betrayal was the articles written by TGC slandering and denigrating faithful Canadian pastors, several of whom I went to seminary with, who defied lockdowns and were jailed. 

These organizations proved somewhat trustworthy for years on basic theological issues providing occasionally helpful cultural commentary along the way. But for over a decade they have been infiltrated and bought by leftists. These were poisoned wells, and undiscerning evangelicals were drinking their lies by the bucket full with disastrous consequences for the people under their care. Our evangelical elder statesmen became little more than puppets, mere mouthpieces of the regime. 

The Effeminacy of the Evangelical Pastorate 

The effeminacy of the pastorate is nothing new. It has grown dramatically worse over the past century as feminism metastasized throughout the cultural landscape. This phenomenon is nothing new as Charles Spurgeon noted over a century ago saying: 

“I am persuaded that one reason why our working-men so universally keep clear of ministers is because they abhor their artificial and unmanly ways. If they saw us, in the pulpit and out of it, acting like real men, and speaking naturally, like honest men, they would come around us… We must have humanity along with our divinity if we would win the masses. Everybody can see through affectations, and people are not likely to be taken in by them.” 

If ministers were effeminate in the 1800s imagine what Spurgeon would say today as feminism has run rampant through evangelical seminaries, publishing houses, and churches. Whatever Spurgeon’s rebuke to our current leadership would be I guarantee that many would critique his tone. To which he would boldly reply, “Oh, my brethren! Bold-hearted men are always called mean-spirited by cowards.” 

And cowardice is what we experienced in 2020. C.S. Lewis warned us about this very thing. 

“We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honor and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.” 

You could drive through entire cities and possibly even entire states on a Sunday morning during the lockdowns and see closed churches led by geldings; men without chests who lacked the courage and honor to live in bold-hearted defiance of tyranny. We expected virtue and enterprise and got only silence and compliance. 

Deferral to Big Pharma and Big Government 

We were told over and over to “trust the science” and “trust the experts” and the church trusted the experts in Washington, at the CDC, on the TV, and in their very pews; unfortunately, all the experts were lying. 

What makes this a tricky situation is you are no longer seeking advice on a medical decision that only has consequences for you and your family. Now entire careers, lifestyles, untold financial incentives, and probably large amounts of unpaid medical debt hung in the balance. How many medical professionals do you know that resigned their positions or were fired for refusing the jab or refusing to comply with arbitrary masking or social distancing mandates? I know several. Men who at a time when it was incredibly difficult to find employment permanently changed their careers and medical students who, despite their student loan debt that would still have to be paid, quit medical school because they refused to comply. 

While I know several courageous medical professionals who sacrificed everything rather than take an experimental vaccine, I know far more blue-collar men who stood their ground during Covid. One’s livelihood is a tremendous thing to have held over your head. Whether they truly believed the medical establishment’s lies regarding the efficacy of the jab, masks, or social distancing or whether they had hesitations and got the shot because they were unwilling to lose their job and the lifestyle it affords the net result was the same. 

By June 2021 the American Medical Association reported that 96% of all physicians had been fully vaccinated while at that same time only half of blue-collar workers had been vaccinated. Trusting those individuals most willing to, though they had medical qualifications for an educated opinion, take an experimental shot to keep their jobs was the wrong call. These men were given undue influence inside of many churches and the voices of blue-collar men were either ignored or silenced. 

Historical and Theological Ignorance 

I have and will continue to read and write extensively on this issue because our failure at this point is inexcusable. I started by tearing through the scriptures for outright examples of civil disobedience like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, for covert ones like Rahab, and for those who would stand before kings and assert their rights like Paul. I found the scriptures to be replete with examples of the faithful who boldly asserted that it is better to obey God than men regardless of the consequences of such obedience. Big Eva and local churches traded the rich wealth contained within the Scriptures for simplistic readings of Romans 13, which deny the analogy of faith, and for poorly reasoned “love thy neighbor” arguments. 

In 1780 Robert Robinson, author of the beloved hymn “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing,” wrote “Christian Submission to Civil Government” a discourse on Romans 13. Consider this excerpt below rebuking self-interested expositors who have perverted the oracles of God. 

“I freely confess my brethren, I never read the text without emotions of pity. Pity that such writers as St Paul, pity that such a wise and well written period as this, naturally so conducive to the good of society, should be so perverted and misconstrued as they have been by self-interested expositors! In the times of our ancestors, in the days of despotism, thousands and tens of thousands have been expended in hiring pens to pervert, or in rewarding them for perverting, the sacred oracles of God, and thus St Paul has been converted into a conspirator against the rights of mankind.” 

This is not an obscure or unknown individual. And yet his exposition of Romans 13 was completely unknown to evangelicals during the tyrannical lockdowns and mandates. It was there, it was accessible for free on the internet, but most never looked for it or countless works like it because, like those that Robinson rebuked, they were careful to comply with, and even conspired with, tyrants to preserve their own self-interests. 

How common is Robinson’s understanding of Romans 13? Is his an obscure one of-a-kind reading of the text or is he standing upon the shoulders of generations of expositors and drawing from a deep fountain of theological wealth? To answer this question, we turn to a rather unlikely source that has become one of my favorite resources in my study. 

John Lindsay criticizes Protestant political theory in his “The Short History of the Regal Succession and the Rights of the Several Kings Recorded in the Holy Scriptures” by (1686-1768). Specifically, he is addressing William Whiston’s “Scripture Politicks: or an Impartial Account of the Origin and Measures of Government Ecclesiastical and Civil.” Consider the excerpt below. 

“That the magistrate is the minister of God no longer, or otherwise, than while he exercises his office for his people’s good! That in case of idolatry, heresy, popery, persecution, tyranny, arbitrary power, or any mal-administration, the people lawfully may resist, and their representatives are bound in duty, for the public good, to depose, yea to arraign and put to death, ‘any the most rightful prince; being in all such cases (of which also they are the judges) freed from all subjection and allegiance! That such resistance is justifiable by scripture in case of necessity; and there is no obligation to passive obedience in such like cases! 

These, and a great many more of the like them, are Abundantly interspersed throughout the known writings of Calvin, Beza, Knox, Goodman, Suarez, Mariana, Parsons, Penry, Buchanan, Leighton, Burton, Calamy, Marshal, Bradshaw, Milton, Goodwin, Ashcam, Harrington, Hobbes, Ludlow, Baxter, Owen, Locke, Sidney, Hunt, Johnson, Tutchin, and others of the association, as well Jesuits as Puritan-Rebels and Regicides: not to speak of some moderns of Greater note; whom (as a learned divine says) I forbear to ‘ name, both to avoid the loss of time, which Such a long catalogue would take up, and the envy which would fall upon me, for naming some of all professions, who yet live, or whose memory is yet fresh among us. But I cannot omit Mr. Whiston whose Scripture Politics will fall under a particular examination in the process of this work.” 

The position that Lindsay Is countering states that when governments fail to function within their God designed role, as an agent of God’s wrath upon the wrongdoer, that those governments have become illegitimate and therefore can and should be resisted and overthrown. Governments that have become tyrannical and terrorize those who do good can justly be rebelled against according to this position. This is the position held by Robert Robinson. This is also the position held by the multitude men Lindsay lists and the many more he forbeared to name. 

Writing in the 1700s, when such research was far more laborious than it is today, Lindsay was able to compile a list of some of the greatest theological minds to his time who all supported resisting unjust rulers. And yet not a single big Eva publication weighed the merits of these arguments made by numerous giants of the faith. 

We could also turn to the greatest theological mind America has ever produced and examine Jonathan Edwards 1775 sermon “Submission to Rulers.” He begins by clearly stating the importance of Scripture as the first and final authority on this issue: 

“For if God has revealed his mind concerning the nature, extent, and end of civil government, we may be sure that such a revelation is a perfect and infallible rule for us.” 

What then does Edwards conclude is the clear and authoritative teaching of scripture? 

“Upon the whole I think we may justly infer that the doctrines of passive obedience and non-resistance are not the doctrines of the Bible. . . The truth is, and the whole spirit of scripture sustains it, that rulers are bound to rule in the fear of God and for the good of the people; and if they do not, then in resisting them we are doing God service.” 

Just as Edwards was convinced that Scripture sets forth the “nature, extent, and end of civil government” so to Abraham Kuyper spoke to the limits, the sphere as he would frame it, of civil government in his 1898 Stone Lectures at Princeton Seminary. 

“The government may neither ignore nor modify nor disrupt the divine mandate, under which these social spheres stand. The sovereignty, by the grace of God, of the government is here set aside and limited, for God’s sake, by another sovereignty, which is equally divine in origin. Neither the life of science nor of art, nor of agriculture, nor of industry, nor of commerce, nor of navigation, nor of the family, nor of human relationship may be coerced to suit itself to the grace of the government. The State may never become an octopus, which stifles the whole of life. It must occupy its own place, on its own root, among all the other trees of the forest, and thus it has to honor and maintain every form of life which grows independently in its own sacred autonomy.” 

Our forebears had tremendous rebukes for those who were unwilling to resist tyranny and to rightly check rogue governments operating outside of their God-ordained sphere. 

In 1775 Caleb Evans, a Calvinist Baptist minister in Bristol UK, wrote “British Constitutional Liberty” wherein he charges future generations: 

“You are called to the careful preservation of your liberty. It is a trust committed to you and which you are under the strongest obligations religiously to preserve and hand down unimpaired to posterity.  It is the price of blood. It has hitherto preserved not without the severest struggles with the sons of violence and tyranny. And shall we after all be regardless of the precious gem, and unconcerned about its preservation? How can we answer it to posterity, who would then have reason to rise up no to bless but to curse us!” 

Kuyper offers a similar charge to preserve liberty of conscience against tyrants: 

“It has cost a heroic struggle to wrest this greatest of all human liberties from the grasp of despotism; and streams of human blood have been poured out before the object was attained. But for this very reason every son of the Reformation tramples upon the honor of the fathers, who does not assiduously and without retrenching, defend this palladium of our liberties. In order that it may be able to rule men, the government must respect this deepest ethical power of our human existence. A nation, consisting of citizens whose consciences are bruised, is itself broken in its national strength.” 

I could go on, and likely will in the future, but suffice it to say that numerous giants of the faith gone before us have defended both in written and spoken word and often with their own blood and their very lives that civil government is an institution established by God and therefore its nature, purpose, and limits are also set forth by God in Holy Scripture.  Furthermore, we have been charged by God to preserve and to pass down this palladium of our liberties unimpaired to our posterity and will one day give an account both to our children and grandchildren but ultimately our Sovereign God regarding this great responsibility. 

As I have noted elsewhere most evangelicals bought into the lie that these were unprecedented times. Nothing could be farther from the truth. What was unprecedented what the church’s laziness in the face of such a foe as the modern tyrannical technocratic state. They simply didn’t do the research. They didn’t do the reading. They ignored our forebears and the wealth of wisdom they left behind. And they deferred to fools and tyrants and made them de facto pastors and elders at churches across the globe. Their churches could have been a city on a hill amidst the darkness of global tyranny and instead they chose fear and silence. They did not deliver unimpaired to posterity what was once purchased by streams of human blood. They owe the world, their congregations, and their Sovereign the sincerest of apologies.

A Starting Point for Doing Your Homework on Covid and Finding Encouragement from Your Opposition

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Was reading this week and came across an encouraging three-hundred-year-old work that strongly argues against the position I take on a biblical understanding of government. It was an encouraging find because it’s well researched arguments further demonstrate how historically ignorant and theologically lazy the church was during Covid.

The book was “The Short History of the Regal Succession and the Rights of the Several Kings Recorded in the Holy Scriptures” by John Lindsay (1686-1768). In it he criticizes Protestant political theory specifically, he is addressing William Whiston’s “Scripture Politicks: or an Impartial Account of the Origin and Measures of Government Ecclesiastical and Civil.”

The section below is from Lindsay. His position is that Christians are obligated to show passive obedience to just and unjust rulers alike. He briefly summarize s the opposing view, provides a lengthy list of men who hold the opposing view, and finally he states his aim to examine this position over the course of his work.

“That the magistrate is the minister of God no longer, or otherwise, than while he exercises his office for his people’s good! That in case of idolatry, heresy, popery, persecution, tyranny, arbitrary power, or any mal-administration, the people lawfully may resist, and their representatives are bound in duty, for the public good, to depose, yea to arraign and put to death, ‘any the most rightful prince; being in all such cases (of which also they are the judges) freed from all subjection and allegiance! That such resistance is justifiable by scripture in case of necessity; and there is no obligation to passive obedience in such like cases!

These, and a great many more of the like them, are
abundantly interspersed throughout the known writings of Calvin, Beza, Knox, Goodman, Suarez, Mariana, Parsons, Penry, Buchanan, Leighton, Burton, Calamy, Marshal, Bradshaw, Milton, Goodwin, Ashcam, Harrington, Hobbes, Ludlow, Baxter, Owen, Locke, Sidney, Hunt, Johnson, Tutchin, and others of the association, as well Jesuits as Puritan-Rebels and Regicides : not to speak of some moderns of
greater note ; whom (as a learned divine says) I forbear to ‘ name, both to avoid the loss of time, which Such a long catalogue would take up, and the envy which would fall upon me, for naming some of all professions, who yet live, or whose memory is yet fresh among us. But I cannot omit Mr. Whiston whose Scripture Politics will fall under a particular examination in the process of this work.”

He begins by summarizing the initial idea he is rejecting stating “the magistrate is the minister of God no longer, or otherwise, than while he exercises his office for his people’s good!” Romans 13 states “rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad . . . for he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer.” The position that Lindsay is countering states that when governments fail to function within their God designed role, as an agent of God’s wrath upon the wrongdoer, that those governments have become illegitimate and therefore can and should be resisted and overthrown. Governments that have become tyrannical and terrorize those who do good can justly be rebelled against according to this position.

Only a handful of individuals and organizations within
evangelicalism did anything other than promote a flat isolated reading of Romans 13 during Covid or present effeminate love thy neighbor arguments. The
majority failed to do the work of systematic theology, biblical theology, and historical theology that their offices and positions require. Which is where the quote comes in.

The Covid lockdown was not the first time the church has faced tyranny, government overreach, or persecution in the past two thousand years. And no small amount of ink has been spilled crafting arguments, exegeting texts, and countering arguments throughout church history. Lindsay
provides a wonderful list where the modern theologian or pastor could begin his study; most notably on his list are Calvin, Beza, and Knox. Start there and then branch out into the work and arguments of others mentioned.

Most evangelicals bought into the lie that these were
unprecedented times. Nothing could be farther from the truth. What was unprecedented what the church’s laziness in the face of such a foe as the modern tyrannical technocratic state. We simply didn’t do the research. We didn’t do the reading. We ignored our forebears and the wealth of wisdom they left behind.


Kuyper, Covid, and Conscience

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The last time I read Abraham Kuyper’s 1898 Stone Lectures at Princeton Seminary was 20 years ago. Myself and many others were prompted by John Piper’s frequently quotation of Kuyper’s words “There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, Mine!” I was prompted to read it again after finishing Ruler of Kings by Joseph Boot.

What immediately struck me was how clearly Kuyper speaks to the present. Before we look back at his argument, I want to begin with his scathing rebuke for future generations who fail to defend liberty of conscience.

“It has cost a heroic struggle to wrest this greatest of all human liberties from the grasp of despotism; and streams of human blood have been poured out before the object was attained. But for this very reason every son of the Reformation tramples upon the honor of the fathers, who does not assiduously and without retrenching, defend this palladium of our liberties. In order that it may be able to rule men, the government must respect this deepest ethical power of our human existence. A nation, consisting of citizens whose consciences are bruised, is itself broken in its national strength.”

Just how important is liberty of conscience? Kuyper explains, “A man of ripe and rich development will rather become a voluntary exile, will rather suffer imprisonment, nay, even sacrifice life itself, than tolerate constraint in the forum of his conscience. . .  The government…must give way itself to the Sovereign conscience.”

On what grounds is a man able to rebel against his government in defense of liberty of conscience? In what follows he argues that obedience to and rebellion against government is rooted in divine sovereignty. Not only is this rebellion rooted in divine sovereignty he will argue that rebellion against tyrants is submission to God.

“It makes it easy for us to obey authority, because, in all authority, it causes us to honor the demand of divine sovereignty. It lifts us from an obedience born of dread of the strong arm, into an obedience for conscience sake. It teaches us to look upward from the existing law to the source of the eternal Right in God, and it creates in us the indomitable courage incessantly to protest against the unrighteousness of the law in the name of this highest Right. And however powerfully the State may assert itself and oppress the free individual development, above that Powerful State there is always glittering, before our soul’s eye, as infinitely more powerful, the majesty of the King of kings, Whose righteous bar ever maintains the right of appeal for all the oppressed, and unto Whom the prayer of the people ever ascends, to bless our nation and, in that nation, us and our house!

. . . Bound by its own mandate. Therefore, the government may neither ignore nor modify nor disrupt the divine mandate, under which these social spheres stand. The sovereignty, by the grace of God, of the government is here set aside and limited, for God’s sake, by another sovereignty, which is equally divine in origin. Neither the life of science nor of art, nor of agriculture, nor of industry, nor of commerce, nor of navigation, nor of the family, nor of human relationship may be coerced to suit itself to the grace of the government. The State may never become an octopus, which stifles the whole of life. It must occupy its own place, on its own root, among all the other trees of the forest, and thus it has to honor and maintain every form of life which grows independently in its own sacred autonomy.

. . . Let it suffice to have shown that Calvinism protests against State-omnipotence; against the horrible conception that no right exists above and beyond existing laws; and against the pride of absolutism, which recognizes no constitutional rights, except as the result of princely favor.”

What Kuyper explains that all of these social spheres have a divine origin and exist under one divine Sovereign. As such the state has no right to become “an octopus” with its suffocating tentacles wrapped tightly around other spheres of life. The State has both a specific divinely instituted purpose as well as divinely instituted limited sphere of influence. Observing the majority Protestant reaction to the multitude of state-sanctioned tyrannies in 2020 it is apparent that these concepts were not at the forefront of the evangelical mind.

We are given some indications of the root cause of our present failures as Kuyper examines the failings of Protestants in his own day. After looking at what he calls a “unity of life-system,” or worldview, of Catholicism and Islam he laments:

“Protestantism alone wanders about in the wilderness without aim or direction, moving hither and thither, without making any progress.”

He further explains the precarious situation in which the church finds herself:

“. . . among Protestant nations Pantheism, born from the new German Philosophy and owing its concrete evolution-form to Darwin, claims for itself more and more the supremacy in every sphere of human life, even in that of theology, and under all sorts of names tries to overthrow our Christian traditions, and is bent even upon exchanging the heritage of our fathers for a hopeless modern Buddhism. . .

And why did we, Christians, stand so weak, in the face of this Modernism? Why did we constantly lose ground? Simply because we were devoid of an equal unity of life-conception, such as alone could enable us with irresistible energy to repel the enemy at the frontier. . .

The responsibility for this degeneration undoubtedly rests in part with the Christian churches themselves, not excepting those of the Reformation. . . these last churches had fallen asleep, had allowed leaf and flower to wither on their branches, and had apparently become forgetful of their duties in reference to humanity at large, and the whole sphere of human life.”

Returning to the opening rebuke we have indeed failed to “assiduously and without retrenching, defend this palladium of our liberties” and in that failure we have trampled upon the honor of forebears who poured out streams of blood to attain it. Indeed many even celebrated this betrayal as they walked lockstep in obedience to lockdowns and rallied in support of vaccine mandates that trampled upon liberty of conscience and broke both our own national strength and that of many nations around the globe. We have failed, quite miserably to live up to Kuyper’s expectation that “a man of ripe and rich development will rather become a voluntary exile, will rather suffer imprisonment, nay, even sacrifice life itself, than tolerate constraint in the forum of his conscience.” We must repent of forgetting our “duties in reference to humanity at large, and the whole sphere of human life.” As the octopus-like tentacles of globalist tyrants continue to tighten and extend their grip around every sphere of human existence we must recover what he calls “the special trait of Calvinism.”

“But it remained the special trait of Calvinism that it placed the believer before the face of God, not only in His church, but also in his personal, family, social, and political life. The majesty of God, and the authority of God press upon the Calvinist in the whole of his human existence. He is a pilgrim, not in the sense that he is marching through a world with which he has no concern, but in the sense that at every step of the long way he must remember his responsibility to that God so full of majesty, who awaits him at his journey’s end. In front of the Portal which opens for him, on the entrance into Eternity, stands the last Judgment; and that judgment shall be one broad and comprehensive test, to ascertain whether the long pilgrimage has been accomplished with a heart that aimed at God’s glory, and in accordance with the ordinances of the Most High.

What now does the Calvinist mean by his faith in the ordnances of God? Nothing less than the firmly rooted conviction that all life has first been in the thoughts of God, before it came to be realized in Creation. Hence all created life necessarily bears in itself a law for its existence, instituted by God Himself.”

Indeed the whole of our life is to be lived before the face of God from church and family life to business and politics and the arts. Only when we recover this will be able to truly grasp and apply Kuyper’s exclamation;

“there is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human life of which Christ, Who is Sovereign of all, does not cry: “Mine!”

Now, we declare that we have heard that cry, and only in response to that cry have we approached this task which surpasses our human strength. We had heard brethren complain about their tragic impotence. Because their learning did not fit their principle and left them defenseless, they could not plead their principle with the power commensurate with the glory of that principle. We had heard the sighs of our Christian people who, in the shame of their self-abasement, again learned to pray for captains to lead them, for shepherds to tend them, and for prophets to inspire them. We realized that the glory of the Christ may not thus remain trodden tinder scoffers’ feet. As surely as we adored Him with the love of our souls we must again build in His Name. And it was of no avail to look upon our little power or the superior might of our opponents, or the preposterousness of such a daring attempt. The fire continued to burn in our bones. There was One, mightier than we, Who urged and spurred us on. We could not rest. In spite of ourselves we had to go forward. Even the fact that some of our brethren, advising against building at this time, preferred living in with Humanism, was a painful source of shame, but increased the inner urge, because the hesitation of such men was an increasingly strong threat to the future of our life principle.”

We too are surrounded by those who are content to live in humanism, who are content to let the secularists win, who are squabbling for seats at tables they should be flipping over. May we not trample upon the blood bought liberties secured by our forebears. May that same fire burn within our bones and may we once again begin to build and subject the whole domain of human existence to the sovereignty of Christ.

Revisiting Abortion and the Illusion of Sovereignty: Addressing the Real Issue

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I originally posted the following article four years ago, here, and with the current discussion of Planned Parenthood and the renewed cultural debate on abortion this is a particularly relevant post to revisit. What follows is an unedited reposting of my 2011 article followed by a brief addendum to clarify the original conclusion.

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Abortion and the Illusion of Sovereignty: Addressing the Real Issue

This Sunday’s cover story, “The Two-Minus-One Pregnancy”, for The New York Times Magazine is nothing new. I wrote several years ago, in “When the Fertility Clinic Meets the Abortion Clinic: A Modern Paradox,” about a similar article in the Los Angeles Times. In fact the only thing that has changed in these four years are the numbers. The reasons and the response are the same things that have been around since the first abortion and if we were to go back further to the origins of infanticide. When reading these articles, or the responses to them, they are so predictable that they almost appear to be scripted. With that I hope to take a departure from the typical response and argue that the real issue here is not life, it is not choice, and it is not even murder. The real issue is sovereignty.

Let me explain what I mean. In her June article, “Yes, Abortion is Killing. But It’s the Lesser Evil,” Antonia Senior explains how having a child changed her perspective regarding abortion. After explaining the lack of a consensus regarding a scientific or philosophical definition of life she concludes,

What seems increasingly clear to me is that, in the absence of an objective definition, a foetus is a life by any subjective measure. My daughter was formed at conception, and all the barely understood alchemy that turned the happy accident of that particular sperm meeting that particular egg into my darling, personality-packed toddler took place at that moment. She is so unmistakably herself, her own person — forged in my womb, not by my mothering.

Any other conclusion is a convenient lie that we on the pro-choice side of the debate tell ourselves to make us feel better about the action of taking a life. That little seahorse shape floating in a willing womb is a growing miracle of life

She then explains that such conclusions have resulted in a movement aimed at separating feminism from “fertility control.” However, she views this as entirely incompatible with the central aim of feminism exclaiming, “The single biggest factor in women’s liberation was our newly found ability to impose our will on our biology.” The freedom of women then depends upon one thing the unencumbered exercise of the will.

With a shocking candor she concludes,

As ever, when an issue we thought was black and white becomes more nuanced, the answer lies in choosing the lesser evil. The nearly 200,000 aborted babies in the UK each year are the lesser evil, no matter how you define life, or death, for that matter. If you are willing to die for a cause, you must be prepared to kill for it, too.

For Antonia Senior, and I would argue for all of us, the principal issue is sovereignty, a woman’s ultimate right to impose her will upon herself and upon others.

Sovereignty occurs vertically in the form of worship, we could use other words but the concept remains the same. We either rejoice in the sovereignty of the God in whose image we are made or we deny it by worshipping any number of god’s made in our image. Horizontally human interaction exists upon a continuum of two extremes; escape and conflict. Both extremes end in death and both are false exercises of sovereignty. At the extreme end of escape is suicide where the sovereign self claims sovereignty over the self by taking one’s life. At the extreme end of conflict lies murder where the sovereign self claims sovereignty over another by taking another’s life.

The first two articles mentioned, “The Two-Minus-One Pregnancy” and “The abortion debate brought home,” regarding reduction, which let’s be honest is a clever play on words to sanitize something far more grisly and sinister, bring another exercise of sovereignty into the question, namely in vitro fertilization and the creation of life. Imposing one’s will upon one’s own biology may require medical assistance and donated eggs which is where our current discussion often begins. With in vitro fertilization, when multiple embryos are transferred, there is always the possibility of multiple embryos implanting and when multiple babies are not wanted or the mother is unable to give birth to multiple children then one or more of them must be put to death. In 1988 Dr. Mark Evans penned guidelines for this procedure stating that “most reductions below twins violated ethical principles.” Things have changed over the past 23 years; the medical community has rethought its ethics and is now willing and able to reduce your pregnancy to one. “The Two-Minus-One Pregnancy” ends with a counterintuitive conclusion. After choosing to reduce their pregnancy to one child the author asks the women what would happen if they miscarried to which one of them replied, “I’ve come to realize there’s only so much we can control. There’s a point where you just have to let nature take its course.”

After all this talk of a woman’s complete control of her own fertility comes the tragic conclusion that “there’s only so much we can control.” Ultimately you cannot impose your will upon your biology because ultimately you are not sovereign. Your sovereignty is an illusion.

How are we to respond to this? Should we call our senator or state representative? Should we start building picket signs and begin protesting abortion clinics? No, we must respond with the Gospel, in word and deed. We must respond in the same way that God responds to humanity’s first act of false sovereignty in the garden, with grace and the promise that in Christ we will be liberated not unto self but from self and sin and set free to worship the one true Sovereign. Any other response is incalculably inadequate and nearsighted.

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Addendum 2015-08-05

The church is a global reality and when I address issues, such as this one, my primary concern is how the global church should respond. And our primary response and concern must be proclaiming and incarnating the Gospel (Ephesians 6:10-20). After all abortions do not occur simply because they are legal or because of Planned Parenthood. No, they occur because of our insatiable desire for control, for sovereignty; they occur because humans, both as individuals and as humanity, a global culture, are unflinchingly committed to our rebellion against the true Sovereign. That must be our first and primary response. Any other primary response is, as I said four years ago, incalculably inadequate and nearsighted.

Now, I still have little patience for evangelical political activism. As Ed Stetzer lamented in Breaking the Missional Code, ” For many, evangelicals have become a voting block rather than a spiritual force” (2006:9). Political activism alone, defunding Planned Parenthood for example, would only be as beneficial as God bringing the Jews out of Egypt without also bringing them to Himself. But in 2011 I was unbalanced and failed to recognize the uniqueness of the American situation. The global church must respond with the Gospel, as in many places political change is not possible in the same way that it is in the United States. The church mush make the gospel our primary concern, we must make the truth known, we must seek to see men and women reconciled to the God whose image their born and unborn children bear.

At the same time when there is opportunity seek political change we must do so humbly, with a knowledge that political change is important but not ultimate. God is redeeming the whole of creation from the cancerous cells growing in your body and the raging of the seas to the political and cultural structures of man. He is, and ultimately will, set those things right, their rebellion will be brought to an end, and the earth will be renewed and inhabited by the new humanity. But the renewal of creation is inextricably tied to the reconciliation of God and man (Romans 8:18ff.). So feel free to contact the political powers that be and seek to persuade those who make those decisions but do so knowing that what your neighbor who is considering an abortion needs most is not legislation but reconciliation.

I hope this was a beneficial read and I hope that this addendum has clarified what was lacking in my previous conclusion.