Hiding Our Faults; Parading Our Virtues

Mark Jones, on Facebook yesterday:

"If our virtues were painted on our rear ends, and our faults on our faces, we'd put our underwear on our head and walk around naked."

Oh, the lengths to which we will go...

The Church, and Tucker Carlson, on the Trans moment

 The PCA may do a good thing, with this overture:

https://pcaga.org/.../Overture-12-Evangel-Petition-re-Sex...

Found it at this link, where Tucker Carlson does some decent theology in the first half of the video.

https://www.foxnews.com/.../church-assembly-debate-urging...

Pro-Life Podcast

So here's a cool thing. My first time on a podcast, featured as a pro-life pastor, hosted by my daughter, Grace, from Right to Life, Michigan!

She hit me with some hard questions on the spot, so I don't know that it's my best, but the issues are worth thinking through...

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/faith-in-life-pastor-steve-hemmeke/id1134666878?i=1000606346404

Responding to the Nashville shooting

This is long, but worth reading to the end.

The last section is especially good.

My main concern is that most Christians will stop after the first section, and just be disgusted with trans people. That's lazy. There is much more we need to do.

https://notthebee.com/article/trans-activists-are-calling-for-more-blood-after-the-nashville-shooting-heres-how-christians-should-respond

DIE's version of free speech: "Juice Isn't Worth the Squeeze"

 Wall Street Journal - March 28

Wall Street Journal - March 28, 2023

Budziszewski!

Andrew Peterson Concert

 What a week! Not only the Jesus Revolution in the theater, but then a music concert by a Nashville artist with hundreds of cheering fans!

Andrew Peterson is a name you should know. He has produced several music albums, a series of Young Adult Fantasy books, and some books reflecting on culture and creativity.

One problem we have as Christians is being extremely discriminating (read, “too picky”) in the graphics and cinematography of the entertainment we take in, while giving much less thought to the message that is coming along with it. We are overreacting against the cheesy Christian media of a few years ago. Christian artists are now pursuing a different and better path, but they are too often dismissed outright.

Andrew Peterson pursues excellence in musical craft and seeks to convey rich and true theology in his lyrics. He doesn’t have the budget of a Hollywood film, which sadly may turn off many, who demand only the best and most awesome thing out there right now. But he is deliberate to convey the Gospel in a lyrically rich and appealing way, shaping the music to that message, while keeping it original and not run-of-the-mill mediocre.

Ending the concert he started us singing the doxology, and then walked his whole crew off stage, leading the audience to praise God, not himself.


Check him out here.
https://www.andrew-peterson.com/
https://www.facebook.com/andrewpetersonmusic

This is a sample of one of his better lyrics – a Good Friday song that delves into what happened to the Sabbath, at the cross…

So they took His body down

The man who said He was the resurrection and the life

Was lifeless on the ground now

The sky was red as blood along the blade of night

As the Sabbath fell they shrouded Him in linen

They dressed Him like a wound

The rich man and the women

They laid Him in the tomb

Six days shall you labor, the seventh is the Lord's

In six, He made the earth and all the heavens

But He rested on the seventh

God rested

He said that it was finished

And the seventh day, He blessed it

God rested

So they laid their hopes away

They buried all their dreams

About the Kingdom He proclaimed

And they sealed them in the grave

As a holy silence fell on all Jerusalem

But the Pharisees were restless

Pilate had no peace

And Peter's heart was reckless

Mary couldn't sleep

But God rested

Six days shall you labor, the seventh is the Lord's

In six, He made the earth and all the heavens

But He rested on the seventh

God rested

He worked 'till it was finished

And the seventh day, He blessed it

He said that it was good

And the seventh day, He blessed it

God rested

The Jesus Revolution Movie: a Review

 

So I saw the movie “Jesus Revolution” last night.

 

4 stars out of 5.

 

As far as I understand, the movie is historically accurate to the times.  The “Jesus people” movement of the 70s was not just a copy-cat of the hippie movement, but was a real spiritual awakening.  The movie contrasts Timothy O’Leary’s message of “turn on, tune in, drop out,” with the Gospel message of forgiveness in Jesus Christ for your sins.  Both messages are clearly shown, and the fruit of them shown, too.  Drugs lead to car crashes and near- or actual-death.  The Gospel leads to new birth.

 

The doubts of all sides are shown well.  Greg Laurie wondered if this religion was just another new high that will pass.  Chuck Smith wondered if he would lose control in his church if he let the hippies in.  Lonnie thought God had abandoned him when everything didn’t go how he wanted.

 

The message is very relevant today, as drugs continue to be an escape for many – yet this path remains a dead end.  When the stoner comes to the end of his rope, the Gospel is still there for him.  The movie conveys the second chance everyone gets to receive grace, though they have made a wreck of their lives.

 

Jesus Revolution shows the polarity between the younger, immature, but vibrant, Spirit-filled faith, and the older, mature, but calcified faith that needs shaking up.  This is a real thing.  But as Hollywood will do, it leans heavily in the direction that the former is absolutely better and life-giving.  This is not entirely wrong, but the young need the old to mature as well.  The movie doesn’t portray that at all.  So no 5 stars.  The megachurch has been stuck ever since in immature mode.  The church needs to welcome in the immature, but insist that they grow in the faith, and not stay the spiritual infants they often are.

 

I’d recommend Jesus Revolution for a few reasons:

1. A history lesson of the church in the last 50 years.

2. Evaluating how churches should present the Gospel to various generations and ages.

3. Understanding the faults that all sides are prone to: traditionalists, new believers, and unbelievers pursuing the truth in bad ways.

Reparations // Public Theology // Defense of American Revolution

1. Kevin DeYoung has a good critique of reparations here.

2. Peter Lillback, president of Westminster Seminary in Philadelphia, has an excellent piece on the importance of public theology here. The seminary is seeing the need to train future pastors to have a developed theology of politics, and to tackle the rise (and I'd say current triumph) of cultural Marxism as the threat to Christianity that it is.

3. Just read this clear article defending the American Revolution. The four take-aways at the end are very good.

But I still have questions.

1. If colonial charters with the king were revoked in 1689, as the article says, how can the whole argument here hinge on those very charters establishing the colonies' relationship with the king, and not with parliament?

2. Didn't the king have the right to use parliament to administer his relationship with the colonies? Seems reasonable to me.

Where the rubber hits the road for me is this:
- Was there a principled problem that we were not being represented in Parliament, or that the king wouldn't hear us reasonably, while our rights were trampled upon? Did George violate Magna Carta-like common law in his treatment of the American colonies?
- Or was it that the colonists had to pay their fair share for the benefits of the empire, and just didn't like it - e.g., taxes to fund a war (French-Indian) that had benefitted them?

I lean toward the first.

Yet I'm suspicious of the strength of the argument that the colonies didn't have to listen to Parliament, only the king.
The better argument seems to be:
- taxation without representation
- rights trampled (harboring troops in homes, etc.)
- Magna Carta obligations the king has to his subjects' rights

https://crosspolitic.com/rebellion-to-tyrants-the-principles-behind-the-just-war-for-independence/

Defending the American Revolution

Just read this clear article defending the American Revolution. The four take-aways at the end are very good.

But I still have questions.

1. If colonial charters with the king were revoked in 1689, as the article says, how can the whole argument here hinge on those very charters establishing the colonies' relationship with the king, and not with parliament?

2. Didn't the king have the right to use parliament to administer his relationship with the colonies? Seems reasonable to me.

Where the rubber hits the road for me is this:
- Was there a principled problem that we were not being represented in Parliament, or that the king wouldn't hear us reasonably, while our rights were trampled upon? Did George violate Magna Carta-like common law in his treatment of the American colonies?
- Or was it that the colonists had to pay their fair share for the benefits of the empire, and just didn't like it - e.g., taxes to fund a war (French-Indian) that had benefitted them?

I lean toward the first.

Yet I'm suspicious of the strength of the argument that the colonies didn't have to listen to Parliament, only the king.
The better argument seems to be:
- taxation without representation
- rights trampled (harboring troops in homes, etc.)
- Magna Carta obligations the king has to his subjects' rights

Saved through child-bearing? // Andy Stanley // Woke Critique

This is a decent, short exposition of 1 Timothy 2:15: 

"Yet she will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control."

Also good:  analysis of Andy Stanley's comments on homosexuality in the church.

Just read this excellent article in Westminster Magazine.

C.S. Lewis' critique of Bulverism, and the critical theory advocates' response to Kevin DeYoung's critique were both instructive.

But the big takeaway is that critical theory's main goal is destruction:

"Tear it all down, because I hate God and mankind."

About the Lord's Day

Thoughts on Mother Kirk, by Douglas Wilson - chapter 6 - The Lord’s Day

 

Summary of Wilson’s argument

Observing the Lord’s Day has gotten a bad rap from the Puritan Sabbatarians, who frowned on napping, bike riding, or other recreational activity on the Sabbath.  The original command was to rest from our normal work (Deut 5:12-15), and to worship (Leviticus 23:3).  Works of necessity and mercy are also allowed, such as cooking meals and doing someone a good turn (Mark 2:23-28; 3:2-5).  The Sabbatarian view that insists the whole day be involved with worship, necessity and mercy neglects the foundational command of rest.  But rest should be accompanied by worship, or it comes to violate God’s purpose for the day (Isaiah 58).

 

It is hard to observe the Lord’s Day without doing so as a people.  We need to give each other rest, and observe it together, for it to really “work.”  This Old Testament command is like the tithe or the call to apply sacramental signs to our children: it may be modified in the New Testament, but we don’t need to find it restated in the New Testament to believe the modern day Christian is called to it.

 

The Sabbath day was changed from Saturday to Sunday when Jesus rose from the dead on Sunday, and then appeared to the disciples the Sunday following (John 20:26).  The early continued to meet for worship on Sunday (Acts 20:7; 1 Cor. 16:2).  Hebrews 4 makes the point that the Sabbath has a creational aspect (the Father rested from His work) and a redemptive aspect as well (the Son rested from His work after the cross).

 

Romans 14:5 and Colossians 2:16-17 are addressing annual and monthly Old Testament feasts, not the Sabbath day.  If they meant to say the weekly Sabbath day is like every other day, it would contradict the verses above.

 

Don’t approach the Sabbath with a list of things you cannot do.  Focus on the basics of rest, worship, necessity and mercy.  Observe the day such that your children desire the day, instead of dreading it.  It should be more celebrative than funereal.

 

There remains a rest (Sabbath) for God’s people (Hebrews 4:9-10).  “This is the day the LORD has made” (Psalm 118:24) spoke of Sunday, the day Christ was risen from the dead.  Sabbath portrays the Gospel, which gathers, relieves, saves, restores, and feasts God’s people.  The day should do the same each week in our observing it.

 

We are set free as New Testament Christians from ritual observance of the Old Testament law.  But the Sabbath was founded long before Moses, and continues as a principle for us to endure.

 

 

Further thoughts of my own

Wilson is right that HOW we observe the day matters.  Just as in all our obedience to God, Sunday observance should be a “get to” not a “got to.”  A delight more than a duty, though it is both.

 

Wilson doesn’t mention this, but his argument contravenes both the Westminster Confession and the Heidelberg Catechism at points regarding the Sabbath.  This is jarring to state baldly, but it is a position to which most orthodox Presbyterians hold today.  Contra Westminster, the Sabbath should involve basic rest and can involve recreation as well.  Contra Heidelberg, there IS a day still set aside for us to observe, regarding the Fourth Commandment and Leviticus 23.

 

 

Wilson skirts this issue, but part of Sabbath observance is giving rest to others, particularly your servants.  This is in BOTH versions of the Fourth Commandment (Exodus 20:10; Deuteronomy 5:14).  It is explicit: “that your male and female servant may rest as well as you.”  So don’t make the illegal immigrant who is cleaning hotel rooms and bussing tables, work on Sundays.  Most modern Christians feel free to eat out or shop on Sundays, but doing so takes away rest from those who are working.  A society that observed the Lord’s Day properly would have employers requiring Sunday work far less than we do.  Just as I would not encourage anyone to blaspheme (3^rd Commandment) or to dishonor their parents (5^th commandment), so I ought not do anything that encourages them to go to their normal waitering job at the restaurant (4^th commandment).  Such work is not a work of necessity or mercy, and often creates a schedule conflict with worship.  The principle is to not do anything that directly causes someone else to work a job on Sundays.  The Sabbath should be oriented around the church and the home, not the marketplace of gas stations, grocery stores or restaurants.

 

The question is often raised of how to give rest to the wife, who usually has extra work if eating out is not an option.  First, the husband can find plenty of other ways to give her rest: helping with the preparation, the cooking, and the dishes, for example.  The husband whose only means of giving her rest is taking her out to eat needs to expand the ways in which he serves and blesses his wife.  Also, the meal schedule can be adjusted, planning a simpler meal, or leftovers, for Sundays.  For wives who find meal preparation a burden, this is quite important.  Others who enjoy cooking may “do it up” on Sundays.

 

I believe this to be a relative command, based on Christ’s teaching on the Sabbath, when His disciples picked and ate grain, and He taught in response to objections about David breaking ritual law under necessity (Mark 2:23-28).  There are times the gas station is a necessity on the Lord’s Day.  Most of the time, this is because you didn’t adequately prepare the day before, but there are exceptions like vacations, where it cannot be helped.  God means the day as rest, not keeping a list of don’ts.  You don’t have to sleep in your car or go hungry if you are far from home on a Sunday.  Sometimes the ox is in a ditch, and work or shopping is needed.  But you should prepare as much as possible on Saturdays to observe Sunday properly.  Again, not so much as a list of do’s and don’ts, but as time set aside to spend with the Lord.  In days past, when we had more of a Christian culture, much of Saturday was taken up with getting ready for Sunday.  You did the work around the house so you didn’t have to mess with it on Sundays.

 

On a date night with your wife, you may often think of an errand to run in the store.  But you intentionally don’t do it, to keep the evening special with her.  It can wait.  How much more should we set aside routine market activity on the Lord’s Day, to spend it with Him and His people?

 

There is a plausible argument for the opposing position, allowing market activity as on any other day of the week.  So I do not treat this as a sin issue, prosecuting people that practice differently, especially not as a pastor.  But I do believe this to be the Biblical means of observing the Lord’s Day.

The Satanic Temple and the Church

And now, a guest post, by my daughter, Grace Hemmeke...

The church faces many fronts of battle. This is in some ways reflective of the church’s state on earth – fractured, schismatic, constantly on guard against “those who hate her and false sons in her pale”. These distractions also show the cacophonous, chaotic nature of the church’s opposition. It can be helpful then, to reorient ourselves from time to time, remembering that we serve Jesus Christ in His commission to “make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit…”

It can also be helpful to remember our common enemy. Some sects of Christianity tend to avoid much mention of Satan or of evil in general, reducing a Christian’s life to merely a relationship growing in faith with God, while other’s explicitly renounce Satan at the time of their baptism, along with all his works and all his pomp.

And sometimes, Satan himself reminds us all that although he fell from heaven, he is now on our earth, going to and fro and walking up and down it.

A few days ago, he did just that. The Satanic Temple made the news with an announcement that they would be providing chemical abortions within the state of New Mexico for those who are interested in performing “The Satanic Temple’s abortion ritual”.

Now there are some Christian congregations and clergy who hold a “modern” or progressive stance on abortion, endorsing it in some cases and circumstances. Ignoring for a moment the commands from the Bible such as, “You shall not murder”, these congregations and clergy now find themselves agreeing with The Satanic Temple, at least on this issue. That might be one of the most obvious and explicit theological red flags a church is ever blessed with receiving, short of God speaking out of a cloud – of course, if they were given the words of the prophets and didn’t believe them, why would they listen to God…

Nevertheless, the willingness of The Satanic Temple to provide abortion should serve as a wakeup call to American churches. There is real and active opposition to Christ, and that Opposer is willing to target the weakest and most vulnerable members of society in his vindictive mission to destroy the image of God wherever he can.

It was interesting to me to note that the abortion ritual which The Satanic Temple practices includes speaking aloud The Satanic Temple’s third tenet: “One’s body is inviolable, subject to one’s own will alone.” That reminded me of two quotes from Milton’s Paradise Lost, which are both spoken by Satan shortly after his being cast down from heaven.

 

All is not lost—the unconquerable will,

And study of revenge, immortal hate,

And courage never to submit or yield:

And what is else not to be overcome?

 

Here we may reign secure; and, in my choice,

To reign is worth ambition, though in Hell:

Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.

 

Among those to whom Satan speaks are the demons Moloch and Baal, who require infant sacrifice as part of their worship. Today, secular culture might laugh at the idea of Moloch or Baal while worshipping the very selfish ambitions which they embody. The Satanic Temple’s third tenet is an obvious indicator of this. There is nothing more important than one’s will and body and if people have to die in order for one to maintain their autonomy, so be it.

Two brief counter examples: First, the virgin Mary, mother of Jesus, who when told that she had been chosen by God to become pregnant with His Son, said, “Behold the maidservant of Yahweh. Let it be to me according to your word.”

Second: that Son, Jesus, who went to his death so that we could stand face to face in God’s presence, justified and redeemed from every sin. He died knowing every pain that he would suffer, with every power to call down a legion of angels and save himself, but he asked God only: “Father, if it is Your will, take this cup away from Me; nevertheless not My will, but Yours, be done.”

The selfishness of Satan bred his eternal damnation and his unrelenting war on God’s people and God’s image. He now unabashedly sends his followers to help others in their destructive selfishness under the guise of bodily autonomy without regard for those around them. Satan is not trying to hide in our society.

Neither should the church. We have a better advocate in heaven than any worldly satanic cultist or selfish secular agnostic does (and ours is still in heaven, by the way). We should continue to oppose Satan, and all his works, which now explicitly include abortion. One benefit of living in an increasingly depraved world is that the church’s work becomes increasingly clearer. The church should, in light of the Satanic Temple’s actions, have renewed unity and total opposition to any pro-abortion measures or concessions.

Outside of the Bible, this is the clearest indication the world will give to the church that abortion is immoral. Both the repeated biblical exhortations to uphold innocent life and this latest rejection of God’s creative prerogative should spur the church to a universal rejection of abortion and the satanic selfishness it stems from.

 

Fearing God Changes Culture // Romans 13 // Churches Treat Pastors Like...

This is a decent article on what it means to fear God, and how it impacts cultures and markets generally.

A solid take on Romans 13 at Tabletalk.

Here's a funny take by Alistair Begg on how churches treat their pastors.

It's tongue in cheek.  Some churches are this mean, but few.

Pastor, the church will, in year...

1 – idolize you

2 – criticize you

3 – ostracize you

4 – liquidize you – squeeze all the juice out of you!

5 – tyrannize you

6 – analyze you

7 – paralyze you

8 – fossilize you

9 – stigmatize you

10 – re-galvanize you

11 – memorialize you

Abuse does not reject proper use

I want to talk about Kuyperian sphere sovereignty, briefly.

All of life is overseen by the family, the church, or the state.  These “spheres of sovereignty” overlap a fair bit, too.  An abuse in one sphere can be corrected by another.

This is probably a bad idea, but I’m going to categorize this politically and simplistically, for this article:
The Left emphasizes the state’s role in correcting abuses in the other spheres.
The Right emphasizes the family’s role in correcting abuses in the other spheres.
The Left tends to de-legitimize the church and family’s authority.
The Right tends to de-legitimize the church and state’s authority.

Here are some examples, where abuse does not reject proper use.

1. Our state governor has used the attorney general’s office to pursue the prosecution of clergy who have been accused of sexual abuse.  The state may be overreaching in the details, here, and doing so out of malice toward the church.  But the state has a legitimate role to prosecute and penalize church officers who commit such crimes.  State abuse of the church does not reject their proper intervention in the church when needed.

2. A man wants to marry but has seen the divorce court do injustice to his friends and family in the past.  So he wants to marry without getting a license from the state, giving it no role.  The state screws up, yes.  But the state has a legitimate and important role in registering marriage and regulating its dissolution, even if they don’t do it well.  The church and family do not have the tools to regulate it when a marriage falls apart.  State abuse of marriage (including wrongfully defining it!) does not reject its proper intervention in a marriage when needed.

3. A church misuses its authority and excommunicates a member for a petty, vindictive, or minor reason.  The member takes his family to another church, vowing never to join another church again.  But the church has a legitimate role to oversee members.  Church abuse of the family/individual does not reject its proper intervention in the family when needed.

(Extra on that one: Christians need church membership like fathers need jobs.  It provides something you need in life.  Even if you get fired wrongly, you need to pursue another job.)

4. A pastor has seen too many cases of authoritarian fathers and presses the men of his church to be “servant leaders” in their homes.  The concept is decent, but he winds up implying husbands should not ever use their authority to lead their wives and children.  The family can go awry in its role.  But the family still has a legitimate role to cultivate marriage and raise children, without undue intervention from the church or state.

5. School administrators press a trans agenda, and insist that if parents do not encourage a child's gender transition, they do not have a role in that part of their children's lives.  The parents should listen when the school talks about their child's behavior in class, etc., but the school is abusing its role with the trans agenda.

6. An older daughter gets pregnant before marriage.  The father asks their pastor not to get into it because it would be too hard on everyone.  They’ve seen how hard ex-communications are on families.  The church can carry out discipline poorly, but the church has a required role in this.    The church’s counsel and discipline within the family aren’t always perfect – it should step carefully and slowly.  But the family should remain open to receiving it with humble grace.  The church has a legitimate role to disciple and discipline families.

(This is the conservative’s Achilles’ Heel.  They talk big about the importance of church and country.  But the second either church or state impinges on their family, even rightly, many will loudly protest or leave.)

7. An elder despises the state’s past covid restrictions on the church.  He agitates to keep the state out of any say in the church.  It is the enemy.  But the state does have a civic role in ordering businesses and institutions.  The state wasn’t wrong to ask churches to consider closing for a little while, when covid started.  (Of course, it turned into something we needed to reject.)  The state screwed up during covid, yes.  But the state has a legitimate role in overseeing the church’s operations, on a civic level.  A cordial relationship between the church and state is much preferred to a hostile one, wherever possible.

Hopefully in each of these seven cases, you can see that any sphere can abuse its authority.  In that instance, it should be corrected, rejected, resisted, over-ridden, vetoed, etc. as possible.

But each sphere's general role and authority remains in place.

Abuse does not reject proper use.