But you put your name to a letter you didn’t believe prior to this. There is zero reason to do so, even pragmatically speaking.
It worked and the sheep under my care were protected.
We discussed exemption letters in our committee meeting and generally concluded, as I recollect, that the individual should declare his conscientious objection to an employer mandating COVID vaccinations. If the employer questions that objection, the drafted statement could be used to demonstrate the integrity of the employee’s objection.
The process doesn’t start with a blanket objection because it is the individual’s conscience that is at issue.
This is not to leave the sheep to fend for themselves but it is to honor the individual’s conscience…while avoiding the opposite error of binding consciences by essentially mandating exemption letters that have little to do with the individual.
4 Likes
Maybe we are talking past each other. I’m not suggesting that we require our people to refuse the vaccine but am saying that if someone comes to me from my church and needs help writing their letter or their employer requests one from me, I’m willing to do so.
In the case of the you g women of our church, my letter said that I believe that their beliefs were sincerely held and were in line with our church’s understanding of conscience on this issue.
I don’t understand how my doing that is binding the conscience of anyone.
The ends don’t justify the means. Declaring to the world that Christian belief is that the government has no right to interfere in any way in any medical decision is wrong. And it is the fast track to losing all religious freedom, in my opinion.
And that leaves aside the question of a small business owner who is immunocompromised, cannot get the vaccine, and works in a small office with one of your parishioners. Does he really have so little authority over his business that he cannot say, “Get vaccinated or get out”? I’ve gone back and forth on this, myself. I’m left asking the question on what religious basis would a man object to that? Can a homeowner not say, “Sorry, but only people with tattoos are allowed in my house.”?
Yes, Bannerman is concerned with the church being left alone by the state, and only in matters of religion. For example, he is just fine with churches being required to register with the state. (If somebody doesn’t understand why he would be ok with this, they should go read him before dismissing him. Remember, his whole piece is a defense of freedom of conscience.)
However, Aaron, he also says that it is based on the reality of individual freedom of conscience on all things religious. What pastor Spurgeon and Bannerman both understand is that since religion connects to all of life, there may well come a point of conflict in fairly practical (non-worship per se) ways. Bannerman’s position is if your religion teaches polygamy, the state may say “that’s a bridge too far. If we aren’t willing to let you practice your conscience, we are, in fact, banning your religion.” Joseph’s position appears to be that the solution is to ban freedom of conscience entirely. (But since presumably he would only want this to happen after he had been made king and written all the rules, I’m not too concerned about it.)
The reason I brought up Sabbath laws is because I think it shows at a glance how untenable Joseph’s position is. The Puritans tried it. They fined people for saying “Merry Christmas” and so forth.
Depending on who got elected, men in our own presbytery would end up putting each other in the stocks under the 1 kingdom rubric. Thankfully it’s hard to imagine any 1kingdom men getting any authority to implement their conscience onto everybody else anytime soon in our nation. Far more to worry about from the liberals hard at work implementing their conscience into all of us.
Legally speaking, yes. You were either a pacifist, or you had to fight. But a Christian may also say that he’s not a pacifist but that a particular war is an unjust war and therefore he is conscience bound to refuse. Regardless of whether the government recognizes and accepts his argument, the man’s conscience is bound.
3 Likes
It’s pretty clear we’re at different places on this front. The question is whether you are 2k at all. Rather than the question being about the application of your faith to the civil realm, I think it is more about the nature of the civil realm and her authority. Does she have any? Do we have free rein to treat the civil authority as an overstepping thug until they demonstrate their unerring integrity?
1 Like
Depending on the person and their character, I doubt anyone here would decline such a request.
1 Like
Precisely. That’s what I meant by saying signing that letter was unnecessary.
I don’t think so, unless you mean his conscience is bound to submit to the civil authority despite his condemnation of the specific war? The draft during Viet Nam had tons of men who rejected the war, morally, but were not pacifists, and so they were required to fight and did so. There was no substantial movement or debate I know of to defend their freedom not to fight in a particular war. It was understood that the civil authority had the right to declare the terms of CO with respect to here and now. Pastors and military commanding officers wrote letters in support of and not in support of specific men’s declaration of conscience, but not one denied the civil authority’s proper place in determining whether he would accept it or not.
Now though, we are facing two distinct matters in which the Christian conscience may not be accepted and Christians may well go to prison rather than submit: women in combat and women drafted. I wonder if discussing these true evils and denials of basic general revelation might not be more productive than allowing agitators to define Christian conscience and our debates by their ridiculous schism in the church and between the church and state over masks.
You may say it’s not over masks, but make no mistake that’s what it was over for a long while and that’s what a certain sort of Christian continues to be fired up about right now. Just heard in the past two days of two more churches divided over masks. One split apart and the other fired a pastor, although the presenting issue wasn’t masks. But likely it was the substantial issue. Love,
3 Likes
I was thinking of women in combat. Or Christians in Nazi Germany. Unjust war with the emphasis on unjust.
The fact that you have no chance of legally being excused has no bearing on whether your conscience can bear participation in such a war. Thus, by refusing, though you suffer for it, you suffer for doing good.
4 Likes
Want to say something else here. As I’ve said to Joseph S. and others the past month, the tradition of Baptists both historically (Reformation era anabaptists) and confessionally (1689) is to deny the civil authority’s authority in matters beyond faith and worship whereas the Preliminary Principles reflecting the Westminster Standards limit the conscientious objection to the matter of faith and worship, just as Aaron said. A post needs to be done showing this in 1689 vs. Westminster Standards/Preliminary Principles. I’ve read the contrast in those documents to Joseph S. a month ago in order to explain I think much of the disagreement over conscience WRT the civil authority is rooted in the Pitchfork Rebellion of Thomas Muntzer coming down to us today by way of 1689. To put it directly, as I did with Joseph back a month ago, those men who come out of Baptist circles into historic Reformed doctrine and polity don’t come out of their anabaptist roots WRT rejecting civil authority, doing so almost anywhere they feel the urge. We have a tendency to think this is theonomy, but it’s not. Theonomy/postmillenialism is just the hook hats formed in the Reformation battles between Thomas Muntzer and Luther/Calvin are hung on.
Again and again, I watch Moscow and think the Baptist mentality determines much they do and say and feel. Their position on Covid is a perfect example. Love,
1 Like
My father has reported to me that when he was a youth in 20th century Massachusetts it was understood that if you did maintenance on your own house on a Sunday, you were at the risk of having the town police telling you to knock it off. This is within living memory.
Those advocating against freedom of conscience should be aware that the legacy of Mass Bay Colony’s theocracy remains uniformly hostile to personal liberty, almost 200 years after the formal disestablishment of the Congregational Church.
Determining the difference between Puritan rule in civil government versus a mercantilist civil government is as easy as crossing the state line between Massachusetts and New Hampshire, which residents of the former do on the regular to avoid the overweening Mass state government.
C.S. Lewis on rule by robber baron etc.
1 Like
Actually, just to get up to LLBean. Smile.
2 Likes
The ubiquity of mini-marts on the NH side of every cow path that crosses from Mass into NH tells me otherwise.
But I did finally throw away my tattered LL Bean flannel-lined jeans a few months ago. It’s amazing how attached one becomes to good clothing in a cold climate. I didn’t wear them once per year down here in the Valley of the Sun.
3 Likes
I’m sitting here laughing after reading these comments about all the assumptions being made about my position. Somehow I’m simultaneously a New England Puritan, anabaptist, 1 kingdomer, and theonomist. You know brothers, when I joined the presbytery I took an exception on the WCF on civil magistrates not to be anabaptist but to hold to the original WCF. Much of my position has come from reading Bannerman, Pierre Viret, the French Hugenots on resistance to tyrants, William Symonton on Christ’s two kingdoms, William Perkins on civil law, and Lex Rex.
Anyways, Andrew the discussion over exemption letters is in context of our statement we just put out.
1 Like
But then Joseph Bayly says the opposite. He said signing the letter was unnecessary.
Maybe I’m just confused but if Joseph is not arguing against exemption letters than what are we arguing about?
Is the disagreement over a pastor validating an individual Christian’s conscientious objection as an individual objection rather than a religious precept of your church versus a church putting out a formal conscientious objection statement on behalf of their congregation (that incidentally isn’t very watertight on the CO front)?
My sense is just about everyone could/would do the former, and most are opposed to the latter.
1 Like
I do see the humor.
For my part, I see you falling into the same ditches as the Puritans rather than the Anabaptists, but I understand the implications of Puritan civil governance better than I do that of the Anabaptists, at least from a practical standpoint.
I mean, saying that you’d do away with conscience protections under your ideal civil government pretty well puts you on one side of that argument, doesn’t it?
Where would you put yourself?
The Supreme Court has ruled that an individual merely needs a sincerely held religious belief, even if it isn’t his church’s official position. Thus, no church-position letter is needed. And that was in the context of an employer needing to provide a reasonable accommodation. So it’s a perfect match.
Furthermore, the letter that the CREC put out, I could never agree with. And since nobody had any need for it legally, why would I sign my name to it? And even if a letter was going to make things easier, I’d rather jot a few sentences down that I could affirm than sign that our church’s official position was something it wasn’t. Nobody’s life is at stake requiring a lie. Nobody’s job is even at stake requiring a lie.
I think Aaron may have hit the nail on the head with part of the confusion. If somebody needed me to vouch for their position being conscientiously held, I’d gladly do so if I thought it was.
2 Likes
Joseph S. He’s my son, not my clone. But there’s a diff between writing someone an exemption letter and writing a letter commending their conscience to an employer based on one’s knowledge as their pastor. Love,