The Question

Recently somebody posed the following question:

[Why] this incessant interest in abortion? Inviting speakers to preach in church and on the IU campus about "abortion holocaust" and using words like "murder," "killing," "infanticide," "slaughter" routinely in its teaching? ...this kind of constant inflammatory rhetoric is going to take a toll on members and encourage anti-social behavior and criminal acts.

It's a worthwhile question to answer regardless of who is asking it, and the description of the outcome certainly resonates right now. As I answer the question, I'm writing to Christians. In other words, I'm going to assume that we are in agreement about a lot of important things.

First, let's clarify and intensify the question by replacing "anti-social behavior and criminal acts" with the word 'sin.' "Anti-social behavior" in this context means "behavior I don't like," and we aren't worried about that as Christians. "Criminal acts" are more problematic because we know from 1 Peter 2:13-17 that the civil authority has been given to us by God and that we are to obey him. Still, we also know in the post-60's United States that there is a time and a place for civil disobedience. Since most Christians agree there is a time for civil disobedience, let's not muddy the waters with an ambiguous term like "criminal acts" right now.

So here's the question I want us to focus on: are we actually encouraging people to sin by our use of inflammatory rhetoric?

Now we could argue that describing the rhetoric as inflammatory is begging the question, but let's accept that calling abortion "murder" is inflammatory. You can't say anything true about abortion without being inflammatory and this isn't because it's a politically charged issue; it's because it's a morally charged issue. Abortion is one of the most evil practices man has ever devised, and the vast majority of us have been directly involved in this evil. The rest of us...

(NOTE: This post is part of a series showing the errors of so-called Two-Kingdom Theology. We refer to it as "so-called" Two-Kingdom Theology because what the church historically has meant by "Two-Kingdoms" bears little resemblance to what Escondido Theology men mean when they write it today. Thus sometimes we write "Two-Kingdom Theology," but more often we write "Radical Two Kingdom," "Rigid Two Kingdom," or "R2K.")

So with many other exhortations (John the Baptist) preached the gospel to the people. But when Herod the tetrarch was reprimanded by him because of Herodias, his brother’s wife, and because of all the wicked things which Herod had done... - Luke 3:18, 19

Engineers rock when it comes to bridges, elevators, and making sure the van is ready for the family vacation. But pastoral care and the application of God's Word to the messies of life? Not so much; the boy needs help. They can be so fixated on specifics that there's no broader picture. Once I served a church with a session of engineers. One of them wasn't just an engineer, but his company had him engineering halfway between quality control and customer service. We loved one another but sometimes he drove us crazy.

With engineers, the work is always definition, demarcation, and proper process towards the single goal of perfection. There's nothing in between right and wrong, risk is always to be avoided, and that's that. So a helpful way to understand the error of R2K is to think of it as an engineer's hat chart for Christian witness. There's this but absolutely not that for now (but not then) when A and B have both occurred within three days of C and Person Number One is wearing his tall hat. If it's a short squat hat, though, that changes everything.

So, for instance, here's how a Radical Two Kingdom church officer (pastor) tries to explain to the public why he went ahead and accepted an invitation to open the U.S. House of Representatives in prayer...

A kindness by the Dodgers' Matt Kemp following their away-game loss to the Giants Monday night. Heres' the back story.

(WARNING: a part of male anatomy not usually mentioned in educated company is named in this video.) When a woman is in danger, a true man acts without regard to his safety. Immediately. Charles Ramsey's my hero, the more so because he speaks with the honesty that only an education can remove from us.

(NOTE: This post is part of a series showing the errors of so-called Two-Kingdom Theology. We refer to it as "so-called" Two-Kingdom Theology because what the church historically has meant by "Two-Kingdoms" bears little resemblance to what Escondido Theology men mean when they write it today. Thus sometimes we write "Two-Kingdom Theology," but more often we write "Radical Two Kingdom," "Rigid Two Kingdom," or "R2K.")

In an essay critiquing R2K that ran¹ in the latest issue of Mid-America's journal for scholars, Cornelius Venema writes:

For those who advocate the two kingdoms perspective [R2K], human conduct in the common kingdom of life and culture is the same for believer and unbeliever alike. The two kingdoms perspective, therefore, liberates Christians from the burden of having to find a distinctively Christian way of living in the “common kingdom.” ...Unlike (those who call) for the transformation of human life under the lordship of Jesus Christ, the Redeemer, the two kingdoms project promises a far simpler, less pretentious and burdensome view of the vocation of human beings within the framework of the common kingdom of God.

Which being interpreted simply says the R2K man breathes a deep sigh of relief and calls out to his R2K playmates "Allee, allee in-free!" Surveying the minefields they would have had to walk as followers of Jesus Christ at work, in the university classroom, inside the courtroom, at the statehouse, in the cafeteria, on FB, and in the coffee shop when everyone else was confessing sodomite marriage, they found a principle to allow them not to confess Scripture, God's Law, Creation sexuality, manhood and womanhood; in short, a principle allowing them not to confess the Lordship of Jesus Christ...

Luther said "God often gives riches to those gross asses to whom He gives nothing else." I was reminded of this reading the news that Warren Buffet is bullish on America because our women are finally getting the benefits of our unique economic system that specializes in "unleash(ing) human potential."

Since the beginning of time mothers have been the very center of the unleashing of human potential, or so I thought? Women have been free to be generalists who introduced their children to the universe as their husbands slaved in mind-numbing specialties introducing money into Warren Buffet's coffers, but now Old Moneybags wants the mothers, too? Who does he think will raise the children once all the bright women are in his offices and all the strong women are in the Armed Forces?

All the stupid weak women?

In this editorial in Fortune, Buffet announces:

America has forged (her past) success while utilizing, in large part, only half of the country's talent. For most of our history, women -- whatever their abilities -- have been relegated to the sidelines. Only in recent years have we begun to correct that problem.

Note that "we." Noblesse oblige.

What of Christians who sacrifice half their household income...

(NOTE: This post is part of a series showing the errors of so-called Two-Kingdom Theology. We refer to it as "so-called" Two-Kingdom Theology because what the church historically has meant by "Two-Kingdoms" bears little resemblance to what Escondido Theology men mean when they write it today. Thus sometimes we write "Two-Kingdom Theology," but more often we write "Radical Two Kingdom," "Rigid Two Kingdom," or "R2K.")

So Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, “Men of Athens, I observe that you are very religious in all respects. For while I was passing through and examining the objects of your worship, I also found an altar with this inscription, 'To An Unknown God.' Therefore what you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you." - Acts 17:22, 23

Notice in Athens the Apostle Paul picks the idols on every streetcorner to focus his call for repentance. There is the gap in the wall and there he stands preaching the Gospel.

The most frequent attack R2K men make against Baylyblog is that we have only one thing on our minds. But is it really us or is it the world? Who chose this hill—did we or did they?

There's a reason one of my favorite orthodox Roman Catholics (I have no favorite liberal Roman Catholics), E. Michael Jones, refers to the demons of our time as "monsters of the Id."

Our battleground is sexuality. That's the gap in the wall that needs to be defended in our time. Back in 1979, I was on the pastoral staff of First Presbyterian Church of Boulder, Colorado for a year's internship prior to seminary and one day the senior pastor there, Bob Oerter, asked a question during staff meeting: "Why are we always talking about the sin of homosexuality rather than gossip or greed or adultery?"

Bob was a wonderful senior pastor and I thank God for my time under his leadership. When he asked this question, I thought about it for a while. We did seem to be guilty as charged—why were we always talking about homosexuality rather than other sins?

Dear brothers and sisters, would you please read this? And don't get discouraged by confusion in the first half; persevere to the very end.