Disobedience only when the existence of the church is threatened. Taking my cues from Bonhoeffer in that statement. He laid out three stages (in “The Church and the Jewish Question”): Stage 1—teach the state to be the state according to God’s Word (this would include litigation when they are oppressing); Stage 2—aid the victims of oppression; Stage 3—throw a wrench into the works only when the existence of the church is threatened by the state. Calvin says similar things about disobedience as a last resort (similar to Bonhoeffer) in the final chapter of Book IV of his Institutes.
1 Like
Aaron, you keep bring this up and I haven’t addressed it up to this point. I’m not blinded by my disgust at Moscow’s rhetoric. The three situations I’ve mentioned—MacArthur in LA, Wilson in Moscow, and Coates in Alberta—are all of a fabric. In each case they’ve claimed persecution. I dispute that claim.
1 Like
Question for you: Do you consider the very act of masking, social distancing, limiting capacity of services to be bowing the knee to the gods of secularism?
There are two dimensions to this problem, and you are confused because you are conflating them. One dimension that we evaluate commands on is the spectrum between targeted → universal. The other dimension for evaluating commands is the spectrum from requiring sin → unjust → good.
Trouble that comes from disobeying a command to break God’s law is persecution, even if the command is universal.
Trouble that comes from disobeying a universal command that is unjust but doesn’t make you a sinner if you obey it is not persecution.
That’s why Andrew is not splitting hairs. We have to make these distinctions.
But it’s not a sin to have church in smaller groups. And the difficulty of the time be lengthy and indefinite does not change things in my mind. (And I can’t give any credence to equating long and indefinite with permanent in this case. So don’t confuse those things either.)
That said, I’m not opposed to the church challenging the political tyranny and saying that they are loving their neighbors by doing so. Likewise, if the law is being unequally applied, and Mosques are indeed being left alone, then it becomes persecution on the grounds of targeting Christians.
Finally, Andrew, I don’t know Canadian law, but I would be surprised if the church could challenge this law in any other way besides disobeying, having the state react, and then suing the state. At least that’s the way it works in the US.
Regarding strategy, yes, it might make sense to score points in the culture war. What it doesn’t make sense to do is equate the culture war with the great commission. And this is why we must distinguish properly between religious persecution and plain old tyranny.
Yes, political freedom and religious freedom are intimately tied together. So much so that Bannerman credits the political freedoms we have in the west to the church fighting in defense of religious freedoms. But he also insists that freedom of conscience rests on the necessary distinction between things spiritual and things civil. It is precisely this mixup that Coates and the rest are making.
6 Likes
In independent polity it’s also not the church.
I don’t understand the heartburn about the anti-COVID restriction “loudmouths”.
I think the brothers in Moscow, Apologia, Founders, and Grace Church (maybe these folks in Alberta) have been wrong about a lot in their reactions to COVID. But they’re less wrong and wrong in a different way than the fully compliant (not meeting at all or severely restricting attendance).
Christ’s people are being harmed by not meeting together. Yes that means they have a common cause with sports and restaurant enthusiasts. So what?
Most churches can’t afford to wage lawfare against the state. And the faithlessness of many pastors makes local cooperation impossible. And where has the ERLC been in all of this?
When the state is punishing righteousness and rewarding evil disobedience (at the point of conflict) is duty.
And boomers please wear an effective mask to church. Your children and grandchildren need you.
See my previous comment.
I judge them to be generally imprudent. But if an authority cannot command me to do something that I consider imprudent, then that authority is no authority at all, and now I am the authority judging the decisions made by some lesser authority.
The government of Oregon has authority vested in them by God to make prudential judgments about gasoline for people in Oregon. Where do you get the authority to judge them?
2 Likes
You do. You may. You receive your authority to judge them from the same source I do, and the same source the magistrate does.
A: I receive my authority from God.
The same Creator endows authority to individuals, husband’s, heads of households, owners, elders, pastors, lawmakers, judges and executives.
All of those powers are derived and temporary.
Individual don’t lose their jurisdiction when they assemble in churches. Congregations don’t lose their jurisdictions because they meet within cities.
The magistrate may rule we shall drive on the left side of the road; under that ruling I may in my individual jurisdiction justly cross-over a double yellow line into the wrong lane.
Lawmakers may rule we shall drive above 45mph and below 75 mph on the interstate; under that ruling I may in my individual jurisdiction justly stop my car in the middle of my lane, even if I block other drivers in cars behind me.
Elders may rule masks may not be worn by persons assembling in their congregation; under that ruling a member Father may keep his family home, or lead them to another assembly where they are allowed to wear masks.
A father may rule his daughter must get an abortion; under that ruling his daughter and her co-fornicator may in their individual jurisdictions decide to keep their baby, escape to Vegas, establish a new household jurisdiction (… and prevent grampa-death-wish from meeting his granddaughter until he repents).
A health department may declare a church building closed and place armed guards and fences to assert their authority; under that ruling the church in it’s ecclesiastical jurisdiction may meet anyway. The families in the church may chose to jump the fence, line up to be arrested, assemble in the Costco parking lot, or stay home holding different tactical convictions.
Authorities usurp powers outside their just jurisdictions all of the time. Father’s insist their daughters get abortions; elders install women as lead pastors; pastors declare baptisms invalid; faculties deny the historicity of Genesis; religious heirarchies ordain homosexuals; elected lawmakers transfer their duties to unelected health tzars; health departments fence meeting halls where there have been no Covid 19 cases; Saul offers the sacrifice; Adam does nothing while Eve talks to the serpent.
It is part of our God-given, limited, temporary jurisdiction as individuals to judge our fathers, our elders, our pastors, our employers, our professors, our heroes, our disciples and ourselves … and our magistrates … with sober judgement grounded on the authoritative Word of God.
Your convoluted reasoning fails to distinguish basic categories such as moral and immoral commands.
Under your reasoning, the grandfather of an unborn baby has no right to require his daughter to carry the baby to term instead of aborting it.
Her body. Her original jurisdiction. Her choice.
You must stop teaching that every man may do that which is right in his own eyes. You must stop asking “Has God really said you must submit to authority?”
I command you as the moderator of this site to stop doing it here.
I command you by the authority vested in me by Jesus Christ as a shepherd of his flock to stop doing it elsewhere.
6 Likes
Do I believe that each of these things, in every conceivable context and extent is inherently sinful and constitutes bowing the knee to the gods of secularism? No. I don’t. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t sinful some of the time. And in the particular case at hand of Grace Life, yes, I do believe that the limitations being imposed on gatherings are forcing an issue of bowing the knee to a secularist ideal.
And on that point, I agree with the criticism that @aaron.prelock is trying to point out to you – you seem to want to throw everything into one big, cut and dry mould. You don’t seem interested in considering that there may be a difference between the Moscow crowd and the Grace Life crowd (though you did start this thread, so maybe I’m wrong?).
I remember a blog you published last year, which I found to be very insightful, and shared it with a number of people. In it, you recounted a historical example of how the company of pastors in Geneva interacted with the civil authorities amid a time of plague, and how they resolved to minister to the sick in quarantine. I thought this example was incredibly relevant to our present circumstance.
This last year has exposed that churches seem to tend toward one of two propensities. Either they are overly eager to rebel against every mandate of the civil sphere, or they are overly eager to blindly submit to every mandate of the civil sphere. While I think there is agreement that the default attitude of the church should be toward the latter, both propensities are problematic.
Churches who have demonstrated themselves eager to rebel have, in many cases, simply made the pandemic another opportunity to manifest and flaunt a rebellious attitude that has existed all along. These are men who who are rebellious.
On the other hand, we have also seen countless “mainstream evangelical” churches who are so eager to submit to every civil mandate without even the slightest hiccup of reservation that their eagerness betrays the fact that they bought into secularism long ago. In other words, the reason they are so eager to obey the state is because the state became their god long ago. If the state says they can’t meet, their pastors are more than willing to comply, with no crisis of conscience – with not even the slightest amount of tension as they consider their charge as shepherds of the flock of God. Because really, they are hirelings. And they’ve been hirelings all along.
Both of these groups are in error. To brazenly rebel against the civil sphere is sin. To regard the civil sphere as god is sin.
What your article demonstrated, I thought, was that we have historical precedent within church history to show us that neither of these extremes is inevitable; that it is actually possible for the church to interact with the civil sphere in times of hardship, in such a way that the church may insist upon its duties, while also affirming and cooperating with the duties of the civil authorities.
But in this thread, you seem to be trending toward a hard line of extremes: we either need to be straight up obedient, or we’re straight up rebels. I think Aaron is right that you’ve become a bit tunnel-visioned by your criticism of the Moscow crowd. This is understandable, given that I understand the Warhorn/Evangel crowd has gone to fisticuffs with the Moscow guys publicly over these things. But brother, maybe you need to come up for some air. 
2 Likes
Or possibly it betrays the fact that cheerful obedience is their default setting. We expect this from our children. It would not be right for our children to hesitate at every command in order to judge whether or not it was good and proper. The view of civil authority as the enemy rather than an institution created for good is the wrong view.
This was the first time I tried to include a quote and it posted the whole thing. I’ll do better next time 
1 Like
That could be true. I’m not trying to put everyone into the same category (I’m arguing explicitly against that). Just stating that these are the the ends of the spectrum.
As I’ve said before, the context of church state relations are important. Christians know we have a target on our backs. We do not trust the civil authorities to keep their word, nor do we trust mainstream news or mainstream academic experts. I’m sympathetic to those who look at the lengthy shutdown orders and think that this is yet another plot to put the screws on the church. If a church’s leaders decide they need to tweak or quietly disregard the rules, I don’t want to pick a fight with them, necessarily. It’s their church, not mine. My own congregation has been somewhat compliant and also non-compliant. Probably mostly non-compliant since we do not mask. I’m not scandalized by it. My leaders made their call, and I am going with it.
Other churches have made different calls, which are also acceptable and legitimate. Again, it isn’t my call to make. Live and let live.
I’ve made arguments. I’ve allowed room for civil disobedience. I’ve made a distinction between persecution and oppression. I’ve said how the three situations I mentioned are similar. And here you bring this up again. Engage the arguments and stop trying to dismiss what I’m saying because you think I’ve lost my mind on Moscow.
1 Like
I’ve made arguments too, brother. And your last response to me was to come back with a blanket question about masks, social distancing, and capacity limitations.
I’m not really sure we’re doing anything productive at this point. Perhaps we are limited by the format. But in the spirit of Proverbs 10:19, I think I’m going to tap out on this one.
2 Likes
Hi Tom,
Am I reading you correctly that your argument is not that one can arbitrarily disobey authority, but that we ought to obey God rather than men?
1 Like
It’s possible I have misunderstood Tom’s position, but since I have asked him to stop he won’t be answering this until @ldweeks and I are convinced in our private correspondence with him. Thanks for your understanding.
5 Likes
I see that Coates and the elders of his church decided to go to a secret location. Putting aside the question of whether they needed to be in this situation in the first place, I like the direction. If this were persecution and he had been cited for preaching—as Wilson again gainfully spins it in his latest: “…I am referring to Pastor James Coates who was imprisoned for refusing to stop preaching.”—I think their decision would have been the right one. Although, perhaps it would be better to meet at the site outside the fence and let it rip (the preaching of the Word and worship of God, that is). If RCMP responded with violence and arrests, secret meetings could then commence.
7 Likes