Are we really compare these decrees by the executive branch to speed limits? Yes people may disobey speed limits but we have clearer and better warrant for the truthfulness of these laws. Though I would argue that Christians should be opposed to speed traps.
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Any action by the state unequally applied to Christians would be wicked. But this is a straw man argument. The opposite could be said back at you. You argument allows the civil magistrates to make any decree they want to regardless of the truthfulness or effectiveness of it as long as it didnât narrowly explicitly forbid us to do some Christ commands. There must be a standard for authorities to follow.
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Well, itâs hard to keep track of all weâre doing wrong by your book. But hey, the hurdle is low for things that are adiaphora. When masks arenât a binding of the conscience, a violation of the Ninth Commandment, a sacrament of idolatry, or straight-up idolatry, one is free to obey the civil law and do as one thinks when that law varies. Which is what you saw at the meeting.
But it irritated you and so you pronounce your fellow presbyters unprincipled. Wearily,
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So you donât believe that speed limits have created a nation of hypocrites?
Brother this is a switcharoo of the argument. Either these are good and lawful laws and therefore we have no warrant to disobey then when we decide to or they are lawless decrees to be resisted. You men have argued that these are laws to be obeyed and yet there was no uniformity in that obedience. Joseph stood in a tight circle with me after the meeting and even gave me a hug. I appreciated both things but this clearly went against the decree to social distance or wear a mask even outside when one canât.
At the end of the day, I get that you men think you are protecting authority in an age of rebellion but we donât have to defend abuses of authority, authority predicated on half truths, and hypocritical authority to defend godly spheres of authority. Neither am I a rebel for arguing that our civil magistrates are making lawless decrees.
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For you to accuse anyone of changing the point under debate is funny, actually.
To others reading this, Joseph has never represented his opponentsâ arguments accurately, and particularly above. But itâs pointless to continue. What we know is the folks that are his heroes and whom he never criticizes sayâŚ
Requiring masks is to bind menâs consciences and to wear masks is to break the Ninth Commandment, to engage in a sacrament of idolatry; and to commit straight-up idolatry. I apologize for repeating myself, but these claims are the center of the issue.
Pot say hi to the kettle. Sleep tight 
Love,
Yep. And sometimes I speed, too.
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I think most laws which are concerned with how we behave in public have their general equity, which most folks understand. For instance, when I momentarily go 8 miles over the speed limit to pass the dump truck who is dripping gravel in front of me on the highway, I donât think a reasonable person cares (unless I am creating clear danger in doing so). Similarly, when a man pulls over to a ditch on some remote rural road to let his boy take a pee because he canât hold it until the next gas station, I donât think any reasonable person who may happen to see it is going to get up in arms about public indecency or urinating on public property.
I suspect the same applies to mask etiquette, in most circles. Youâre certainly correct that the leftists have made masks about virtue signaling, but I donât think youâve proven your brothersâ hypocrisy. I kind of think youâre proving your own, actually, unless you rigidly follow every human law to the letter.
Even the Levitical law wasnât as rigid as you seem to demand the mask mandates need to be (1 Samuel 21:6, 2 Chronicles 30:17-20).
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It does bother me that when I disapprove of a church protesting masks, I am siding with some evil people who hate the church and are gleeful at any perceived division or weakness, such as the profane counter-protestors Joseph mentioned earlier.
What are some good ways to disapprove without validating anti-Christian detractors, when oneâs thoughts canât be kept private?
Just a thought: any safety measure implemented, when it becomes common, is usually done incorrectly and irrationally. Thatâs just how humans are. We are not good at doing things consistently. If youâve ever worked at a job site with dangerous tools and seen the way the same guys can be over cautious and incredibly careless depending on the moment, itâs no surprise that peopleâs mask hygiene leaves a little to be desired.
No offense, but in your assessment of others mask wearing, you end up coming off as the Pharisee. You seem painfully conscious of what everyone is doing with their masks. I sometimes chuckle at noses poking over the top, or various mistakes in wearing, but at the end of the day I try to keep it a good natured chuckle and move on.
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Itâs kinda funny to me that you are accusing me of being a Pharisee. Iâm not the one creating laws.
All we have heard for six months is authority, authority, authority. We have criticized others being against masks. It seems reasonable to me if that is your position that you would accurately and carefully follow the mask decrees not doing it halfway or disregarding it randomly. Pharisees make up laws for others that they donât follow.
I personally donât care what you do about a mask but if you are argue for them you ought to do them rightly. If seems hypocritical to me to be against those principally opposed to masks but ok with unprincipled disregard for them.
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What weâve shown over and over again is the lack of any principle. And when you and I spoke on the phone, you didnât even know what Doug Wilson has said, in spite of the fact that weâve quoted him, weâve explained why his argument is wrong, and youâre defending him. Why should I bother arguing with you if you cannot even be bothered to read either the men you are criticizing or the men you are defending?
Nope. And since you havenât bothered to read the arguments, itâs not surprising you get it wrong. But Iâm surprised you donât remember it when Iâve said it to you on the phone multiple times.
I have a sincere request for you. Please stop commenting about masks unless it is to engage with what 2 Corinthians 3:18, the third commandment, and what freedom of conscience actually means with regard to masks and church leadership.
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This is untrue. I said I had not heard every argument he had made. In particular the 2 Corinthian argument which I looked into after our conversation. I went back and forth with Toby a week ago for quite a bit of time at the conference. I criticized him for it and challenged him not to use it. Which should silence both you and your father above who said these are my heroes whom I never criticize.
Please donât misrepresent our conversation. I do admit that I had not heard every single thing Pastor Wilson said but thatâs different than saying I had not read anything.
Well Iâm glad that somebody is allowed to say he shouldnât say that.
Itâs no misrepresentation to say that you didnât know what you were attacking or defending. Anybody who read you commenting on this post or the one where we said Wilson shouldnât abuse 2 Cor that way should know you hadnât even read our post and didnât know what we were criticizing. Itâs one thing to not have read everythingânobody canâitâs another thing to attack a post you havenât read. It scandalized me that you didnât know he was saying that, precisely because of how vehemently you were defending what you didnât know and because of how vehemently opposed to our criticism you were, not knowing what we had said.
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As a bystander to this conversation, you guys are making presbyterianism look like a lot of fun.
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It is fun. We love each other.
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To return to the point, let me say for the record that getting a bunch of women and children to accompany you to the courthouse and sing psalms while you bait the civil authority into arresting you for flouting his mask requirement is a political act with religious trappings. It is not a religious act with political trappings.
Anyone who thinks this is the new evangelism of Reformed Christians, and other churches ought to join in, themselves, has been snookered by the rhetoric into thinking the test of Christian faith today is the intensity of oneâs belligerating against civil authority.
These men are trivializing Christian confession and religious persecution. They keep shouting that masks are all kinds of sinful including a binding of the conscience, the breaking the Ninth Commandment, the sacrament of idolatry, and idolatry straight-up, abusing Scripture and Scriptureâs God to set up a system that serves their political interests. I find it revolting and keep trying to avert my eyes. I hope there will be other wise men who join us in making clear Biblical and historical arguments against them. Love,
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I knew what you all had said. But I donât need to necessarily agree with every argument and detail of argument with Moscow to agree in the larger context with Moscow.
Quite frankly I havenât been satisfied with either sides arguments. I think the image of God argument is stupid and the this was not persecution argument also stupid.
Itâs the larger context that I think you all are off base.