Highlight: The Problem with Incrementalism

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Let's do it. So Pastor Toby did a video, and it was called

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Strategy to End Abortion, Eight Tenets of Smash Mouth Incrementalism. This is

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Pastor Toby, and he is going to spend some time talking about the position of smash mouth incrementalism.

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Here we go. Until the next legislative session to bring a bill of complete abolition, how is that not incremental?

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Are you saying that it's okay to kill babies until then? Of course not. Introduction.

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This is not any kind of official document, but rather an informal reply to a request from some for an explainer of the tenets of the smash mouth incremental approach to ending abortion.

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While the request was for tenets, consider this more of a list of biblical principles defending the approach.

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But it's a thinking out loud list, certainly not meant to be complete, exhaustive, or necessarily representative of anyone other than me.

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Pastor Douglas Wilson coined the phrase to describe our approach to ending abortion here in Moscow at Christ Church and our related ministries, although it certainly is not a requirement for fellowship or membership.

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So here goes. One. We call for the immediate end of all murder by abortion from conception on and biblical justice for the unborn, and we support all efforts to establish this moral judicial duty in the world.

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Stop. I'm guessing. First, I guess you're going to comment on that. First half.

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Yes. One hundred percent. Amen. Thank you. Here in the second half. And here herein lies the issue.

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And I know you're ready to go on this. The question is, should we support legislation if it is not just legislation?

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That's it. And that is the bottom line issue here. Go. No, that's it.

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Justice put a bunch of stake in his mouth. I'm waiting. I'm going to let you guys go first. Like you said, I mean, we want all murder to stop murder by abortion and from conception.

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That's the biblical position. It doesn't get any more biblical than that. The question becomes, which efforts do we support?

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Are they the ones that God explicitly says that he hates in his word, or are they the ones that he approves of?

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That's the issue. And this is what I would encourage Pastor Toby to think on.

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Brother, just think on this. I started this show off, and Toby, you're well aware of all these verses.

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We hold to the same position on this completely in terms of the law of God and culture and society. God's righteous standards, his justice established, and his word, his law, his law word is the reference point we go to to say what is actually just.

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We know in God's word that unequal weights and measures is an abomination to God. I gave you in Proverbs chapter 20, there's actually in one chapter, two verses in one chapter on the issue of unequal weights and measures.

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That's the issue of partiality. Partiality. So if anyone's just now getting into this conversation, say, okay, what's the big deal?

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Well, I want you to think about what Pastor Toby just said. We're in full agreement. It's murder. We need to end it immediately.

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From conception. From conception. So everyone here goes, okay, we're all on the same team. We agree with the same things. But here's what you will hear from Toby and from Doug.

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And I'm not in any way impugning their character or trying to make fun of them. But I want you to hear this in terms of consistency.

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Here's Doug and Toby. Smash mouth incrementalism. It's murder. It's the image of God.

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God hates the hands that shed innocent blood. It must be immediately stopped. It's a sin that will lead you to hell.

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It must stop. It must stop now. But I'm willing to compromise. That's their position.

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But I'm partiality.

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It's unequal weights and measures. It's an abomination to God. But I'm willing to compromise.

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That's the issue. And you really need to let that hang because that is that you have

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Doug and Toby in promoting smash mouth incrementalism holding on to two things.

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One, the truth. Murder. Stop it immediately. Abomination before God. But I'm willing to compromise.

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But I'm willing to compromise. Now, that's the main issue. Because I want to say that the issue here,

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Toby, I know you'll watch this. Toby, when you think about this particular issue of incrementalism,

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I think there is a problem with definition going on here. And this is key. We don't mean that we're opposed to incrementalism in terms of a small step in the realm we're in getting us to justice established all over the world as Isaiah 42 promises.

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Which is point four. Right. We believe that, of course, you can only work with the step that's in front of you.

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But what we say is this, that increment, the faithfulness in, say, the state of Arizona, or the state of Louisiana, or the state of Colorado, that faithfulness must be a faithful increment, not an unfaithful increment.

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Right? So, yes, it is technically an increment, and we're not opposed to that, to stop it in Louisiana.

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Yes, that's an increment. But it's not going to be a compromised increment.

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It will be a faithful, prophetic increment. It will not be a compromised increment.

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So, for example, what we're challenging with you, Toby, is this. You and I would agree, Toby, 100 % as pastors, we know the

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Word of God, we know God's standards of justice. God says here, unequal weights and measures are an abomination to Him.

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So as pastors, we can't put a stamp of approval on something that God says

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He hates. What I said in response to Doug, Toby, is I said very clearly, if this legislation was brought before the throne of God, does

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God hate it? And if it's partiality, we know because the law,

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Word of God, God hates it. He hates legislation that says you can kill these babies, but not these babies.

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You can kill the babies who are pain -capable, or you can't kill the babies who are pain -capable, but you can kill the ones who aren't, the arbitrary standard.

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You can kill the healthy babies, but not the babies with genetic abnormalities. That's partiality.

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It's an abomination to God. So no minister of the gospel should ever stand up before the public square and say, it's murder, it's evil, but I'm willing to compromise.

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And what's the compromise look like? Well, I know that bill is an abomination before God.

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He hates it. He will judge it on the last day. Isaiah chapter 10, he says, woe to those, a curse on those, condemnation upon those who write these iniquitous decrees, which is what it is, making the fatherless pray.

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We can't say, that's how God feels about it, but I'm willing to compromise. Because the answer ought to be this, what?

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Be prophetic. Be truthful, be honest, say, no, God hates that. This is an evil, it's an abomination,

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God hates it. Let's do what's right before God, and yeah, you stop it first in Arizona, you stop it first in Oklahoma, you stop it first in Louisiana.

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Still didn't get it. You stop it in Colorado. And yeah, that's an increment, but here's the difference, Toby. It's not a unfaithful increment.

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It's not an unfaithful one. It's faithfulness the whole way through. And I'm going to pass this on to you guys, but just think about this, the issue of the gospel, the issue of the gospel.

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Toby's going to say here in a moment, things about mustard seeds becoming trees and the gospel going forth, small becoming large. This is all related to this.

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I'm going to put this down at the beginning of this. Yeah, the gospel goes into the world as a mustard seed, so small you can barely see it in your hand, and it becomes a tree larger than a man.

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That's true, amen. But the gospel goes forth into the world with a pure gospel, a real seed, not a compromised seed.

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And Jesus, with large crowds in front of Him, He actually makes the crowd disperse by actually saying, if you're willing to come to Me and hate father, mother, sister, brother, wife, and even your own life, don't come to Me.

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So Jesus didn't preach a compromised gospel message that starts as a seed that becomes a tree.

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He had a pure gospel, a faithful gospel, an uncompromising gospel that was a seed that made only a couple disciples that finally grew into a tree that we see all around the world today.

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But it was never in a compromised increment, a compromised seed. So what we reject,

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Pastor Toby, is we reject the idea that you should, as a man of God, as a

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Christian, as a woman of God, you should actually accept something that is a compromised gospel, or a compromised bill.

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A bill that God says He hates. That's the issue. So this definition problem of increment, well if you stop it here, that's still an increment.

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No, what we're against is compromised increments. If you're going to fight against abortion, you better do it with justice that God loves, justice that God speaks about.

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You can't do it with compromised justice, which is really no justice at all. I think, too, it might be helpful to say this, that sometimes we get bogged down in the discussion by this terminology, immediatist versus incrementalist, when it's like, okay, well

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Scripture doesn't use those words. The categories that we have are, is it just or unjust?

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That's how we should be thinking about it. So if it helps for the purposes of this discussion to just take those terms for a second and put them over here.

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Let's just put them over here off to the side and let's just boil it down to, is it just or is it unjust?

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Nobody denies the reality that there's going to be progress, but we wholeheartedly affirm that God is the one that grants that progress as He sees fit to, and yet He reveals in His Word the duty that He requires of us, right?

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The prescription. What is the prescription for how you enact justice? This is it. That's what you're responsible for.

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God's responsible to take liberty and to do what He will and to grant the appropriate amount of progress that He is determined to grant, but there's still the issue of, what has

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He said to us? How are we to be faithful? And that's one point. And I know the second point in your guys' conversation with him in Tennessee, that was the question you asked.

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Well, wait a minute. Go back for a second. Think about what you just said. Does God hate it or is it evil? And I remember his answer.

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It was, well, if they know, if they have knowledge about it, then they're accountable. Well, that's a great argument for the prophetic witness of the church to the magistrates in the civil realm, because they ought to know.

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They ought to be being instructed in this area. They ought to be being told that, in fact, this is a violation of God's word.

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Yeah. So this is a great conversation, just as far as what are actual righteous increments.

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This is a conversation we've been having a lot the last six months to a year or whatever, because there are those in our camp and I think that's why

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Toby was saying this, that would say there are no increments, period. And we're like, well, there has to be at some degree.

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The question is, is it a righteous increment? Right. And so like, you know, the example Toby uses, brother, that's not really that's apples and oranges almost, because the way our nation is set up, like obviously it is state by state.

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So you can't really use the state by state example to say like, well, yeah, there's increments, you know?

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Yes, there are. But that's that's almost a different converse. It's really a different conversation than the kind of incrementalism.

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Right. A righteous increment. Yeah, exactly. Or even like because we've had this kind of an abominable. Yeah. Increment.

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Yeah, exactly. Right. So like there's there's a lot of states that don't have the death penalty.

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Right. So we're saying like in each state, we're saying this abortion should be treated as murder like for the you know, from conception.

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And but in certain states, if we were able to get a law passed in those states treating it as murder, they don't have the death penalty.

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That's not a just penalty for murder, but it's a righteous increment. Right. That would be one that it's righteous.

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Yeah. So then the next increment would be, OK, now let's let's make the penalty for murder just based upon right.

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Righteous standards of witness and all the rest. Yeah. Yeah. But what exactly you're keying in on the main the main issue, because when you work to define what's in the womb and provide equal protection for all humans, that in itself isn't an abomination.

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You're instructing that state and the legislature that's human. It must receive equal protection.

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You cannot have unequal weights and measures protect all humans from conception in this state. Yeah, you're exactly right.

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You get on the tail end of that and you go, man, their justice system is flawed there. I mean, they're giving people like two years, three years for murder, you know, whatever the case may be, or they're putting people on death row on like circumstantial evidence without like proper witnesses.

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That's a whole other area. Yes, that needs to be dealt with with the prophetic witness of the church. Amen, amen, amen.

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But what you are dealing with in the area of the slaughter of the pre -born, that legislation you put forward, you cannot put forward legislation and give you a thumbs up to it as a minister, as a

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Christian, when that legislation is legislation that God hates. Because it's teaching the people something.

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The law is a teacher. And so if the law is teaching people that this is acceptable, when

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God says that it isn't, we're going to be held accountable for that. Exactly right. The question to ask, the premier question each and every time, and this is what we do all the time when we're working in states and we're trying to get legislation put forward and be a prophetic witness to the church.

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We're asking ourselves the question, does God hate this? Yeah. Does he hate it? Yeah. Because an unjust, unrighteous increment would be just, for example, like, you know, you can have an abortion up to 10 weeks or whatever.

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Like those would be, that would be an example of an unrighteous increment. And this, and this is what I want to challenge Toby on.

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I did the same thing when we responded to Doug, but you know, there's the two main abominable sins in our nation are abortion and gay mirage.

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Right. So if there were, if it was a law for, for, for gay marriage, I can promise you, they would not be responding the same way.

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If there was a law that said, well, a man can marry a boy, you know, 13 and up, but not under that they would be saying, no, that's not righteous.

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That's not, you know, and that, that would be, I think that would be a, uh, an unrighteous increment that we could compare.

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Like they would not be responding the same way. So I don't understand why when it comes to abortion, they're, they're treating it this way.

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You're right. No, exactly. I think that Doug and Toby and all of our brothers and sisters at Christchurch would fight the battle in the area of gay mirage without compromise and with proper definitions.

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So what we're arguing for is that as you fight against child sacrifice, you have to do it in the same way you would fight against the evil of gay mirage.

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You would do it without compromise and with proper definitions. Right. Always and every time.