Military

(NOTE: “Johnny” is a diminutive of “John.” After titling this piece, it occurred to me that using the title “Johnny get your gun” would be seen as disrespectful, so I’ve changed it to “John, get your gun.” I respect John Piper and apologize for a title that didn’t show proper respect for him.)

The Reformed church has been all atwitter over John Piper’s response to Jerry Falwell encouraging the students of his Baptist college to get a gun and help protect the campus against armed attack. John tells his readers that he talked with Jerry before writing him up. Then, he frames his response to Jerry this way: 

The issue is about the whole tenor and focus and demeanor and heart-attitude of the Christian life. Does it accord with the New Testament to encourage the attitude that says, “I have the power to kill you in my pocket, so don’t mess with me”? My answer is, No.

Of course, this is an uncharitable summary of President Falwell’s position since no one carrying a gun on Liberty’s campus is primarily concerned about himself. Christians don’t carry guns because they don’t want to be killed themselves, but because they want to be faithful to defend others—particularly women and children. This is our calling as Christian men. We defend the innocent and defenseless. It would have been more kind for John to phrase it this way: “I have the power to defend my sisters in Christ here in my holster, so don’t mess with them!”

(Henry Holsters are the superb work of a member of our church, Andrew Henry. Buy one.)

I haven’t read any of the responses to John’s anti-gun piece except Doug Wilson’s. Doug makes a good point when he begins his defense of John this way...

"Rousey has drawn controversy herself by refusing to fight the transgender fighter Fallon Fox, claiming that Fox has an unfair advantage. Many medical experts disagree with that contention."

- Quartz reporting on UFC fighter Ronda Rousey gloating over beating out Floyd Mayweather for the "best fighter" ESPY.

When Proverbs tells us the rod is for the back of the fool, it applies to nations, also. These United States have given ourselves to foolishness that's so depraved it's unlikely anything other than physical suffering and death can turn us back.

But maybe I'm naive and we're beyond even the reach of the rod?

The horror of AIDS only stiffened our resolve to give ourselves to sexual perversion...

In the same vein as the post just below, here's the video and transcript from a 60 Minutes piece titled "A Few Good Women." It begins:

Remember that old recruiting ad the Marines are "...looking for a few good men?" Well, now they're looking for a few good women as well. The Armed Services have been ordered to open all their ground combat units to women by the end of this year - or else give the secretary of defense a good reason why not.

Nothing in the orgy of sexual anarchy these United States are giving ourselves to is easier to oppose with hard facts than our hell-bent rush to make our mothers, wives, and daughters kill and die for us as ground force combatants in the U.S. Armed Forces.

More than a decade ago, I spent a couple years working against this madness as a member of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America's Ad Interim Study Committee of Women in the Military. During my service there I was appalled at the connivance of a good number of PCA pastors and elders at these worst manifestations of rebellion against God's Creation Order of Sexualtiy. Both at General Assembly and on our committee, there were a number of pastors and elders (including military chaplains) who did everything they could to obstruct any attempt to call the denomination to say "no" to women in combat. On our committee, these men perpetually claimed there was no such thing as a front line, nowadays...

A PCA pastor who did several tours over in the Mideast forwarded this review of American Sniper by Brian McLain. Another brother wrote an excellent response to this review and I hope to be able to publish his response here, also. Anyhow, Brian McLain begins his review:

Thinking back over Clint Eastwood's film-making career - particularly the later years - there has been a reccurring theme of fathers abandoning their children.

A few paragraphs into the review, McLain...

(by Father Bill) An essay over at Red State titled, "Religion: a looming mental health crisis..." has a chilling survey of contemporary opinions among the psychiatric professionals concerning whether or not they should designate racism, sexism (i.e. non- or anti-egalitarians), and homophobia (opposition to gays and their modern agendas) as mental disorders liable to "treatment." Especially helpful are the links the writer provides to psychiatric professionals discussing the value of such designations.

The author notes how political opposition in the Soviet Union was handled in this way: those opposed to Communism received a medical diagnosis of mental illness. I always knew this was true but I was reminded of it by my brother-in-law, a recently retired USA Colonel now working at Fort Benning as head of a discipleship ministry among military personnel. 

Not long ago, one of his students had a run-in with the Army's Equal Opportunity Department—bureaucrats paid by U.S. taxpayers to brainwash current members of the Army with the latest egalitarian and homosexualist thinking...

The US military has a problem. Sexual assault is rife within the ranks. Senator Carl Levin suggests that it can't be fixed “without a culture change throughout the military.” Sounds reasonable, but I don't know...

Reproduced below is the Majority Report of the Presbyterian Church in America General Assembly's Ad Interim Study Committee on Women in the Military. The 30th (2002) General Assembly received the report with thanks, adopted its recommendations, and the work of the committee (including this final report) may be accessed here in the PCA's archives.

On this day when our Commander in Chief has repudiated God's Order of Creation by declaring women will no longer be protected from combat in our Armed Forces, I commend this document to our readers. If biblical Christians today studied and embraced Scripture's doctrine of Creation Order sexuality, it would be a significant step toward the restoration of the unity of the Church and these United States might again have a bright light in their midst. (TB)

* * *

MAN’S DUTY TO PROTECT WOMAN

We, the undersigned, endorse the Consensus Report, while realizing that Report lacks unity on the crucial matter of whether the recommendations it contains constitute the church’s wise counsel or a Christian’s scriptural duty. Believing that this is a matter of scriptural duty, we have joined together in writing this report to the end that we might set forth with confidence and clarity the full counsel—both New and Old Testaments—of the Word of God concerning this matter. Our report attempts to summarize three areas of evidence, as follows:

First, God the Father wages war in defense of Israel, His Bride; Christ our Savior fights to the Death defending His Bride, the Church; the Holy Spirit calls men as officers to guard and protect His Bride; the duty to protect the Garden of Eden and the warning not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was given by God to Adam; husbands protect their wives, not wives their husbands. Thus we are taught the binding nature of man’s duty to guard and protect his home and wife.

Second, woman is the weaker sex and part of her weakness is the vulnerability attendant to her greatest privilege—that God has made her the “Mother of all the living.” Men are to guard and protect her as she carries in her womb, gives birth to, and nurses her children.

Third, we are to renounce every thought and action which tends towards a diminishment of sexual differentiation since God made it and called it “good.” [E.g. Scripture’s injunctions concerning women exercising authority over men (1 Timothy 2), women or men wearing clothing of the opposite sex (Deuteronomy 22:5), sodomy (Leviticus 20:15-16), etc.] Rather than a stingy attitude which minimizes sexuality’s implications, we ought to rejoice in this, His blessing.

It is our conviction that these areas, taken together, provide a clear and compelling scriptural rationale for declaring our church’s principled opposition to women serving in military combat positions.

When a man loves a woman, he will lay down his life to defend her, just as Christ loved His Bride and gave Himself up for Her. Men have proudly fulfilled this duty from time immemorial...

They heal the brokenness of the daughter of My people superficially... - Jeremiah 8:11a

E-mail has been low in my priorities recently, so I didn't read this or post it on Veteran's Day. But it's worth posting now. The writer, Jeff Ewer, is an elder of Clearnote Church, Bloomington who served in our Armed Forces when he was a younger man. His comments here on Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) are helpful and they apply to a host of issues where we neglect the soul and the Law of God and thereby fail to comfort the afflicted. And I say "we" because this failure is as common in the Reformed church as it is among other Christians. Warren Kinghorn, the writer of the USA Today article Jeff links to, ends his piece: 

Veterans need a civilian culture that refuses to distance itself from them either through reflexive condemnation or, more commonly, through reflexive valorization. Sometimes, they need communities that can offer the non-medical languages of confession, repentance and forgiveness. And above all, they need to be taken seriously as moral beings who have stood for us in hazy and complicated places and who now bear witness to what that commitment entails.

In the Reformed church, it's usually "reflexive valorization;" I know that's a good characterization of my own care for these men. We must do better, providing them care that applies the Word of God to their killing and probes and welcomes their confessions of sin.

This article is also most helpful in our work exposing and ending child molestation and incest.

My wife and I spent most of the past week out of state working with the elders and pastor of a PCA congregation dealing with sins of incest in a large homeschooling family. Much like war, the horror of incest conspires to silence the application of God's Word to the sinners and victims...