Are there civil magistrates in our churches...

Under the post "The blood is on our hands...," one reader  comments...

I've appreciated the strong stance against abortion on the Bayly Blog, but every time I come away thinking I live in a very different world than that of this blog...

[You write] "let us anathematize the Republican Party for their conniving at that slaughter while buying votes by claiming to be the pro-life party"

At this late date? I think it is has been pretty obvious for at least ten and more likely twenty years that the Republican Party has no desire to take any substantive steps against abortion.

[You write] "Now listen, these men and women—the Republicans, that is—are mostly publicly confessing Christians..."

Really? If so, it must be only in the sense that Pres. Obama is a professed Christian and church attender. Otherwise, I'd like to see some evidence because I've not seen it anywhere I've lived (urban areas of California, Washington state, Colorado, New Jersey, and Virginia). So far as I can tell, the vast majority of Republican office holders have no religion beyond the civic religion of "God bless America". The reason why pastors and elders don't admonish or rebuke the civil magistrates in their churches is because the civil magistrates are not in their churches. I've never seen a civil magistrate at any level make anything like a sincere profession of faith or attend an evangelical church. Let me know where you have seen otherwise.

Admonishing and rebuking the civil magistrate within the church would be suitable for a church-going society. But we are not a church-going society. Neither are we a society where more than a single digit percentage of the population views the Bible and the church to have any authority, at least in places I've lived. I think recognizing this must be our starting point for working to eliminate abortion.

Helpful comments, and I respond:

Yes, the Republican Party has almost always betrayed the unborn, but at least they betray them rather than building their platform on murdering them. Hypocrisy is the tribute vice pays to virtue, and we might choose to be thankful for that tribute's witness.

>>The reason why pastors and elders don't admonish or rebuke the civil magistrates in their churches is because the civil magistrates are not in their churches. I've never seen a civil magistrate at any level make anything like a sincere profession of faith or attend an evangelical church. Let me know where you have seen otherwise.

Three thoughts.

First, I have seen otherwise in the congregations I've served. The present one, but also my congregation back in Wisconsin. Over the years I've had the privilege of being the pastor of a number of administrators near the top of major research universities (two vps), prominent faculty members, an appellate judge, several individuals serving at the top of state government, etc. (Humorously, one of our congregants recently told me of turning down a dinner invitation from an EU head of state—and the state wasn't Lithuania.) So yes, I've seen otherwise, and I've left several off the list above. In other words, the civil magistrates *are* in our churches. Or could be.

Second, about that "or could be". I've long been convinced that the reason our public servants betray their Lord in their work is that their pastors and elders don't exhort, admonish, and rebuke them. When men and women start in our churches as pre-med undergrads or first-year law students, we must immediately begin to teach and exhort them concerning their future work and the duties they will have to honor their Lord by standing for him in their work as they face abortion, sodomy, euthanasia, etc. This will cause us to lose some, but more of them will come to love us and to follow the Lord more faithfully, and thus our work will bear fruit for God for decades to come. Proving our fatherly love for these souls by instruction and rebuke will keep them in Christ's church continuously served by Christ's shepherds throughout their lives. On the other hand, public servants won't love or trust unfaithful pastors and won't stay in their (or maybe any) churches.

Third, this is one of the central errors of the spirituality of the church, R2K men. They are always saying that pastors shouldn't run for office or issue legislative agendas because this is not the church's calling. But what they never address is the church's responsibilities to those civil magistrates who are in our congregations and must judge, legislate, and rule. Right there all R2Kism goes smash.

The pastor is to guard his flock and central to that guarding is warning the member at the top of the state judiciary that he must vote and write opinions and stand against sodomy, that she must witness to the federal headship of Adam (not Eve), that he must oppose the bloodshed of the unborn, feeble, and elderly, and so on. We must never stop commanding Christians to honor God in all their life and work rather than being that denial of Christian faith which is private Christianity.

As I said, the minute we ask the question how the pastor and elder is to guard the soul of the civil magistrate who is a member of his congregation, we see that R2Kism is ludicrous. Unless, of course, its whole point is to placate the conscience of the unfaithful shepherd who would rather die than instruct, admonish, and rebuke the civil magistrates who are in the flock he shepherds.

As always, with love,