#WokeChurch is Asleep at the Wheel

Well, I woke up this morning at 3 .30 and I couldn't go back to sleep, and I've been waking up pretty early lately, just because I've got so much to do. So this is only like maybe an hour before I normally wake up, but I had an extra hour of my day today, and I took advantage of it to do a variety of things, but one of the things I did was I painted a new miniature.

Tabletop Gaming and Social Justice in Christian Culture

You might not know this about me, but I do play Star Wars tabletop games, war games, and I gotta say, you know, tabletop gaming has been infected by the social justice crisis as well. They're injecting feminism and all kinds of weird things into the games, but I have to say I really appreciate this miniature.

I appreciate them finally getting some bald representation here. This guy kind of looks like me, I think. Anyway, so that's what I did this morning, but I wanted to do a quick video. Over the weekend, I had a frustrating conversation about theonomy or God's law.

Not theonomy proper, but just God's law in general, the general equity of God's law. Someone strongly implied that I was sort of hiding my real beliefs about God's law regarding sexual ethics and crime and things like that.

I find that kind of an insinuation so frustrating, because my beliefs on God's law could cost me very dearly, and I'm open about them, and the idea that I'm hiding it for some reason is just preposterous.

Now, if I was hiding it, I'd probably have good reason to hide it, but I'm not. I remember when I came to Vermont, I was coming for an internship, like a pastoral internship kind of thing, and I remember the pastor, one of the questions he asked me before he took me on was the five most influential books of my life, and at the time, one of them was a book by Gary North called Millennialism and Social Theory, and that raised all kinds of red flags for him.

He was like, whoa, you're not one of those Reconstructionists, are you? And I was just open about what I believed, and he said, well, this is what he basically told me. He said, as long as it doesn't come through in your preaching, it's fine.

And so like, obviously it did come through in my preaching, but anyway, the point is though that when somebody believes what I believe about God's law, you're not a very popular person, you know what I mean?

Even in Christian circles. And so that insinuation really bothered me. But the reality is though that I understand that some of the things that I believe about God's law are even debated within people who have a high view of God's law.

Not everyone who has a high view of God's law believes the same things I believe, or Marcus Pittman was involved in this conversation as well, and he's a real zealot. Him and I are zealots when it comes down to it.

And the reality is, so here's the thing, look, people have debated this stuff for a long time. You know, Joel McDermott has a really good point in one of his articles I read recently. He actually sent it to me, and he was talking about how the Westminster Catechism, the Westminster Standards, it's supposed to be a consensus statement.

So that whole thing about the general equity of God's law, it's written deliberately so that you could subscribe to it, but believe very different things about God's law. You could believe how Greg Bonson believes, or you can believe how someone a little bit more flexible on God's law believes, and that's intentional.

That's what the intention of the statement was regarding the general equity of God's law. But one thing you cannot do as a Christian, I think, and this is whether you subscribe to the standards or not.

I think this is a biblical teaching. You cannot just dismiss the law and say, oh, well, if we did that today, well, that's tyranny. That's just tyranny because we're not under the law anymore, or something to that effect.

These people that I was talking to weren't saying that, but they were basically dismissing it with sort of the normal stuff, the Acts passage where they say to the Gentile believers all they have to do is not eat a strangled animal or meat sacrificed to idols.

They said, well, see, there it is. We're not under the law. I'm like, you can't just do that. It takes a little more nuance than that. Even if someone was citing Joel McDermott in this thread, too, about how his views of sexual crime and things like that have changed.

And they're referring to the Karam principle, and the reality is that you can cite Joel McDermott all you want, but he's not doing what you're doing. He's not dismissing God's law as applicable. What he's doing is he's interpreting it a certain way, and so you have to actually do the work.

You can't just be like, well, we're not under the law. You know what I mean? I don't necessarily agree with Joel McDermott. To be honest, I haven't looked into it as much as I potentially should, and I'm planning on doing that.

He says a book is coming out about it. That's great. I'm looking forward to it. But the reality is you could cite him, but the thing is, foundationally, I agree with him about the abiding validity of God's law.

Now, we're going to have differences, but foundationally, we are much more in line than he is with people who dismiss God's law. You know what I mean? I don't know why you would cite him. I mean, obviously, he's got differences with a lot of people who believe in the general equity of God's law.

But fundamentally, foundationally, we're in much more agreement. You know what I mean? So anyway, I would just caution, if you're going to be commenting on God's law and being so bold as to say that if we implemented certain aspects of it, that would be tyrannical.

Man, I would not want to be in that position, to be kind of sort of in a blasé sort of way, saying this is tyrannical. God gave this to the people. He gave this to us. This is in the word of God to us directly.

And it's like, well, you're going to have to have some kind of nuance there. You can't just wave it off, quoting a passage from Acts about sacrificing meat to idols. It doesn't work that way. But anyway, I don't want to talk about that too much.

I don't want to get into the weeds there. Probably more to come on that, because I believe that God's law is critical for the social justice movement. You don't have to be a theonomist or anything like that, but you have to have a high view of God's law.

You just have to. You just have to. It's just that simple. What I wanted to talk about today was just this, you know, God is at work. He always is at work. And I think he's making fools, fools of many people in this woke movement right now.

The Democratic Party and the Evil of Infanticide

He is pulling back any kind of mask of civility that the Democratic Party has. Any kind of, well, you know, there's some nuance here about what they believe. He's pulling that. He's ripping that back and exposing them for what they are.

It is pure evil, pure evil. This bill, you know, you can't even agree that if a baby is born alive, is outside of the womb, you can't even agree that that is a human being that has all of the rights that any human being has from God.

You can't even agree with that, that baby should still be allowed to be killed simply because he or she is not wanted. I mean, wow, you can't get much more evil than that. You just can't get much more evil than that.

And so all these people that are, that are sort of trying to sanctify voting for Democrats because, you know, over here, they're right. They're better than the Republicans over here. You guys got to take a good look in the mirror.

You guys are crazy. You guys are crazy. And I got to be honest. I feel extremely vindicated from my, my comments on the cross-politic network where I said, you should be church disciplined, probably if you continue to do this kind of stuff.

I mean, it's, it's getting embarrassing. You guys are embarrassing yourselves and you're dragging Christ's name through the mud. It's just that simple. But, but here's what I want to talk about. You know, I saw this tweet and this is the kind of tweet that I just, I don't even know how to describe it.

Cowardly, but not really. It's it's not cowardly. It's not even the right word. It's just infuriating. That's really what it is. It's infuriating. J .D. Greer, J .D. Greer, the president of the Southern Baptist Convention.

He sees that the Democrats, pretty much to the man, vote for infanticide. I mean, this is not even like hard to see as infanticide. Like we've, look, all abortion is infanticide. I agree with that, but I can at least understand how someone would say, oh, well, you know, when they're, when they're only a few weeks old, it's not infanticide.

I can at least understand why someone might think that way. As stupid as that is, I can at least understand it. But here we're talking about a baby that's outside of the womb, fully formed. Everything is just as human as anything.

Like, like there's no mistake here. There's no mistake here. There's even a Satanist in my town. There's a literal Satanist. He worships demons, like a literal guy who worships demons, who lives in my town, who says, y 'all Democrats are crazy.

You guys are crazy. This is as pro-abortion as you can get. And this guy is saying you guys are crazy. I mean, but anyway, J .D. Greer, here's what he, here's, here's his hot take. Here's his tremendous contribution to the conversation.

This is the Southern leader of the biggest denomination in the United States. Here's what he has to say about this. This is not a Democrat or Republican issue. It is about whether to keep babies born alive, alive.

When I saw this, I, I, I literally facepalmed, you know, I literally facepalmed. And I just, I just, I can't even believe it. Guys, I'm not a Republican. Eventually I got to do a video about why I'm not a Republican, but I'm not a Republican.

So this is not partisan for me. And I think that's what he's trying to say. This is not partisan issue. It's about morality. But, but, but this is a Democratic issue. Quite literally it is. The vote was almost, almost perfectly on party lines.

We've got one party who is absolutely insane voting for infanticide. And you're telling me, oh no, no, it's not really about Democrats and Republicans. Get some spine. Get some spine, J .D. Greer. You, this is, this is DEFCON 1.

And you're over here equivocating. You're over here being as obtuse as I've seen anyone ever be. This is not a Democrat. It absolutely is. It absolutely is. This is what the Democrats are all about. They're crazy.

They're crazy for this. And I'm not saying every person who's a Democrat is crazy for this. I'm just saying the elected officials are crazy for this. This is what they're all about. And you're over here telling me, well, it still might be okay to vote for them because I like their economic policy.

They care more for the sojourner. What are the chances? I've said this many times. What are the chances that a party of people who get the easiest moral question anyone's ever been asked, hey, should it be okay for you to kill an infant?

That's the easiest moral question anybody's ever been asked in the history of humanity. They get that wrong. What are the chances that they are getting right some of these more complex questions about what to do with refugees?

I mean, I think we could all agree that's a much more complex question. Even if you think that they get it right, what are the chances that someone who can't even think on a basic moral level can understand the complexities of a more complicated issue?

The chances are about zero, about 0%. J .D. Greer, it's infuriating. It's absolutely infuriating. Now, here's Donald Trump. Donald Trump, look, Donald Trump is not known for his grasp of complicated morality, right?

Donald Trump is not known for that kind of thing. I mean, let's just be honest about that. And you might say, well, Donald Trump is just using this to get elected. Okay, fine, granted. But I want to ask you a question.

Why is it that Donald Trump is thinking more clearly on this issue than J .D. Greer? Why is that? Let's listen to this. Senate Democrats, that is literally true, by the way. Senate Democrats did this, not Senate Republicans.

This is a Democrat issue. Senate Democrats just voted against legislation to prevent the killing of newborn infant children. The Democrat position on abortion is now so extreme that they don't mind executing babies after birth.

That is a billion times more clear than J .D. Greer's nonsense. This is a Democratic issue. The Democrats are doing this. The Democrats want this. This is what the Democrats like. This is not a bipartisan support for infanticide.

I mean, I just can't even imagine Donald Trump. This will be remembered as one of the most shocking votes in the history of the Congress. I agree with that. If there's one thing we should all agree on, it's protecting the lives of innocent babies, lives of innocent babies.

So Donald Trump understands. Like, look, do I think that Donald Trump has enough of an understanding about the fact that we've been talking about infanticide this whole time? No, I don't think so. But now that it's so obvious, God has pulled out any veneer of civility to this.

He's pulled it out from under you. Donald Trump somehow is landing on the right side of this. And many Christians aren't. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know that they support infanticide, but I like the fact that they really care about disenfranchised communities and Blacks and Latinos more.

They're not racist. And so, you know, I can I can I can be OK with it. I just I honestly just don't get it. This is so perplexing to me. This is DEFCON 1 and our leaders are equivocating and Donald Trump somehow comes out on the side of truth unequivocally, unequivocally.

The Church, Political Operatives, and the Sleeping Giant

Wow, I just I just don't I just don't get it. I don't get what's going on. But no, no, that's not true. I do get it. I don't get why it's being allowed by the run of the mill person in the pew. And you know what?

I don't think it is. I don't think it is. I think there's a sleeping giant in the church. And I think that the Gospel Coalition and the ERLC and all of these people have made a very big strategic error.

People are starting to understand what's happening here, that we've got a political beast, a political machine that's that's just running roughshod over the church. And a lot of these people are, I think, intentionally doing it.

They're not thinking as Christians here. They're thinking as political operatives. And so when you're a political operative, you're just trying to get your team to win. So it doesn't matter exactly how it happens.

It's just the important thing is that your team wins. That's why we're seeing people that are that are so quick to believe Jussie Smollett, so quick to believe all the ridiculous nonsense of the Covington situation and all of that.

But you won't see anyone, anyone talking about the very overt, obvious political violence of the left. You won't see it because it's about their team. It's not about what's just and what's good and what's right.

I mean, my goodness. Anyway, that's what I have for you today. And hey, hope this is helpful. God bless.