Some questions for those who think they've arrived

There are other excellent collections of such things out there. These are some notions I thought of myself.

Romans 7 refers to Paul's life as a redeemed, regenerate man. Here are six arguments to that effect.

Why does Jesus teach His disciples to pray in the following way?
Luke 11:4 "And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves also forgive everyone who is indebted to us."
What sins, if those who are walking in the Spirit don't sin? Is this only a prayer that brand new believers are supposed to pray? Where does Jesus indicate anything of the kind?

Why does James 3:2 say "for we all stumble in many ways"?

Why does Solomon say in 1 Kings 8:46 that "there is no man who does not sin"?

Why does Paul refer to "my brothers" in 1 Cor 1:10-12, when he is rebuking their quarrelling?

If only people who stop sinning entirely reach Heaven, what is 1 Corinthians 3:9-15 about?

The Scripture mentions numerous times that God chastens His children. Does He chasten people when they don't sin? If chastening as sons occurs after sin, how is it that they are referred to as children at that time? Why doesn't it refer to apostates or sinners or de-regenerated people, who once belonged to God but have fallen into condemnation because they sinned?

What do Hebrews 12:4-13 mean?

Philippians 2:27 Indeed he was ill, near to death. But God had mercy on him, and not only on him but on me also, lest I should have sorrow upon sorrow. 28 I am the more eager to send him, therefore, that you may rejoice at seeing him again, and that I may be less anxious. 29 So receive him in the Lord with all joy, and honor such men, 30 for he nearly died for the work of Christ, risking his life to complete what was lacking in your service to me.
--The church lacked in its service to Paul. But he is still treating them like Christians.
--Paul is sending him so that he may be less anxious. Yet we are supposed to cast ALL our anxieties on Christ (Paul even says so later in the book - 4:6). Maybe Paul was unregenerate when he was writing the Epistle to the Philippians.

Why does Paul differentiate between the righteousness of his own that comes from the law and the righteousness that he has by faith (in Philipppians 3) if
1) it's so much better to be free from sin in this life through our own perfect obedience?
2) he had achieved perfect obedience to the law?

Why does he go on to say what he says in v12? Should we consider you more spiritually advanced than the Apostle Paul?

What do verses 13-16 mean? Why does he say that those who are mature should think that way? Wouldn't someone who has achieved perfection already be mature?

Philippians 3:17 - 17 Brothers, join in imitating me, and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us.
Why should these BROTHERS join in imitating Paul? That's an invitation to keep growing to maturity. Isn't a perfect person already mature? Isn't a lack of maturity sinful? Why does he call them BROTHERS?

What do Philippians 4:2-3 mean?
Why is it that Paul is so certain that these women's names are in the book of life if
-election is false?
-they are in the middle of dissent?

What do Philippians 4:14-16 mean? Are those other churches that neglected to provide for the scanty needs of an apostle of the Lord entirely false churches, entirely populated by unregenerate people?
Is it not a sin to doubt? What does Jude 22 mean, in that case?

What does Acts 15:6-11 mean, especially the parts boldfaced here?
6The apostles and the elders came together to look into this matter. 7After there had been much debate, Peter stood up and said to them, “Brethren, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles would hear the word of the gospel and believe. 8“And God, who knows the heart, testified to them giving them the Holy Spirit, just as He also did to us; 9and He made no distinction between us and them, cleansing their hearts by faith. 10“Now therefore why do you put God to the test by placing upon the neck of the disciples a yoke which neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? 11“But we believe that we are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, in the same way as they also are.”
What is it about circumcision that is a yoke that the apostles said they weren't able to bear? Why are the commands of the NT more bearable than OT laws?

Why does 2 Peter 1:8 say the following?
For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
How can the aforementioned qualities increase if one is supposed to be perfect already?

Why does Paul pray for the Colossians in Col 1:9-10 if they are NOT yet walking in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to Him, or bearing fruit in every good work?
As a matter of fact, why does Paul still treat the Corinthian church, Galatian church, and all thsee other churches as actual churches filled with actual Christians if they were sinfully allowing these divisions, sinful doctrines, and negligent behaviors among them? Why didn't he tell them all that they were headed to Hell?

The Bible says that we are to keep careful watch over ourselves and our doctrine. When you fail to realise that you have sinned, such as when you speed while driving, you have failed to do what you were supposed to do. Even if you repent immediately it doesn't matter because you keep telling me you are perfect and wallking in the Spirit.

You are supposed to have perfect joy at all times. How are you in perfect joy right now? And what will you do if you ever fall into depression?

Do you never waste even a nanosecond of time? Do you always use all of every second of every day for God's glory in all ways?

Do you always use all of your money and every single cent of your money in a way that brings the maximum amount of glory to God?

Notice how the author of Psalm 119 expresses many times the fact that he keeps the commandments of God, but then also expresses his failings. How do we explain this other than by saying that he is a righteous man who sometimes sins? Specifically:
Ps 119:136 - My eyes shed streams of water, because they do not keep Your law.
Ps 119:176 - I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek Your servant, for I do not forget Your commandments.


In what way is the New Covenant better than the Old Covenant? How are the new promises better than the old?

What does it mean that Christ has died for all sins once for all?

What does Hebrews 4:16 mean? Why do believers need to find mercy and grace on an ongoing basis?

What does Hebrews 5:1-3 mean?

Why doesn't the author of Hebrews call the recipients of the epistle to be re-regenerated because of the faults in them as listed in Hebrews 5:11-14?

What is a "dead work", as in Hebrews 6:1 and 9:14? Why is it set in opposition to faith?

Do you teach and confess that it is impossible to renew the one who falls away to repentance again, as in Hebrews 6:4-6? Or do you teach, contrary to that passage, that those who fall away into an unregenerate state can come back to God?

Why is the author of Hebrews convinced of better things concerning the recipients, since they love Him, even though they are guilty of these things he just mentioned? Is not failing to realise the full assurance of hope until the end a sin as well?

Why does the author of Hebrews use the example of a unilateral covenant in which Abraham had no part, no role to fulfill, in this discussion in Hebrews 6:13-20?

If the law made nothing perfect, as in Hebrews 7:19 and 10:1, why do you think we can be made perfect thru obedience to the law now?

Wasn't the epistle to the Hebrews written post-Jesus' coming? Why didn't he say anything about that at that point?

What does Hebrews 10:10 mean? Were all of the recipients on their deathbeds, such that he was 100% sure they had all persevered until the end already?

What does Hebrews 10:18 mean?


Did Abraham, who is said to have been justified by his faith in Genesis 15:6, become un-justified when he lied to Abimelech? When he took Hagar into his bed so as to jump-start the promise that he would have a son?

Was Lot un-justified when he offered the men of Sodom his daughters? If so, why is he called righteous in 2 Peter?

If Jeremiah and Job had died right after their complaints against God, would they have gone to Hell?

If Peter had been stabbed by a Roman soldier right after cutting off Malchus' ear, would he have gone to Hell?

Which between Barnabas and Paul reverted to an unregenerate state when they separated over the question of whether John Mark would accompany them on their mission?

Why didn't Jesus call Philip to repent and be re-regenerated when he lacked faith in John 14:8?

Why didn't Jesus call the disciples to repent and be re-regenerated after His resurrection but before His ascension, given that they had doubted His resurrection?

What does Romans 12:3 mean?

What do Galatians 2:16-17 mean?

Why can it be that there are those who preach Christ out of selfish ambition in Philippians 1:15-18?

Can one who is perfect be conspicuous in failing to be mentioned in the love he ought to have?
Paul singled out Timothy in Philippians 2:20 - "20 For I have no one like him, who will be genuinely concerned for your welfare."
And then v25 - I have thought it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus my brother and fellow worker and fellow soldier, and your messenger and minister to my need, 26 for he has been longing for you all and has been distressed because you heard that he was ill.

Is it not falling short of perfection to be surpassed in the excellence of love for a church by someone else?

Romans 7:14-25 and Paul's struggle

Here I present some exegetical reasons why Romans 7:14-25 refers to Paul's struggle up to the point in his life when he wrote it, as a regenerate Christian desiring to live for Jesus, instead of referring to his pre-Jesus life, or to his life as lived as a Jew under the Mosaic Law.

1) He uses the present tense throughout the passage.
"I am of flesh..."
"For what I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate."

If the competing views are true, we'd expect to see verbiage more like this:

14For we know that the Law is spiritual, but I was of flesh, sold into bondage to sin. 15For what I was doing, I did not understand; for I was not practicing what I would have liked to do, but I was doing the very thing I hated. 16But if I did the very thing I did not want to do, I agreed with the Law, confessing that the Law is good. 17So now, no longer was I the one doing it, but sin which dwelt in me. 18For I knew that nothing good dwelt in me, that is, in my flesh; for the willing was present in me, but the doing of the good was not. 19For the good that I wanted, I did not do, but I practiced the very evil that I did not want. 20But if I was doing the very thing I did not want, I was no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwelt in me.

But we don't. The present tense maintains throughout.

2) Paul already discussed what it was like when he didn't know Jesus, when he was under the condemnation of the Law, in verses 7-13.

3) Verse 15b says: "I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate..."
18b: "...the willing is present in me..."
19: "For the good that I want..."
19b: "...practice the very evil that I do not want..."
20: "But if I am doing the very thing I do not want..."
21: "...the one who wants to do good..."

The only person about whom it is true to say that he wants to do good, hates evil, is willing to do good, etc, is the regenerate person. How do we know this?
Romans 8:6-8 - For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace, because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so, and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

Does doing good, being willing to do good, desiring not to do evil, and such things please God? Yes, of course.
And the only way that one can escape from being in the flesh are those who are born again by the Spirit of God, those who are alive in Christ. One is either alive in Christ or dead in sin, and those who are dead in sin and in the flesh cannot please God, and these statements Paul makes in Romans 7 are inapplicable to them.


4) Even if Paul is speaking about himself as under the Mosaic Law or as before he knew Jesus, he still affirms total depravity here. "Nothing good dwells in me..."

5) Verse 23 ("I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members") does not make sense unless there exists a battle, a duel between good and evil, in the regenerate person. Lost, unregenerate sinners don't battle against sin, and they follow the lusts of their glands/bodies/hearts/evil thoughts without much compunction.

6) Paul does not cry out for mercy from the Law or to be born again at the end of his discussion. Rather, he cries out for deliverance from the body of this death. The sinful nature remains in his flesh, he feels the weight of the struggle, and he longs to be free from his body (ie, to die and be with the Lord and thus free from the presence and temptation of sin) so as to be released from this struggle.


DISCLAIMER: In no way is any of the above intended to excuse sin, diminish sin's severity, or deny that regenerate people are able to do the right thing and can deny temptation every single time that temptation arises.

"There is nothing that can be done to make this a true church."

Note on 28 March 2014: Tony Miano apparently thought that I am a member of Door of Hope church. That was false at the time of his writing that and for months after. Miano would know that if he'd done even a modicum of research, to say nothing of due diligence, before posting his hit piece about faithful men and women of God. The way that his confident words flow smoothly from his ignorance is truly a sight to behold.


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The Babies Are Murdered Here page (ie, Marcus Pittman of Crown Rights Media and Pastor Jon Speed of Syracuse, NY) continues to embarrass themselves and go back on their word by continuing to comment with considerable frequency on Abolish Human Abortion even though they said over a month ago that no matter what AHA would say, they were done talking about it.

Yet just today they have revealed their quasi-papist ecclesiology in a very strange statement. (In all fairness, it probably seems so strange because the men behind the BAMH documentary have shown themselves to be loose cannons who easily fall into foolish statements when caught off-the-cuff on Facebook.)

There is nothing that can be done to make this a true church.
(Source) (Screenshot)

The "this" refers to the church to which a fair number of abolitionists in Norman, OK belong.

This raises a number of questions for the author of this statement.

1) What is the author's answer to Matthew Martellus' article regarding the unbiblical nature of the "true church/false church" distinction?
2) What is the author's answer to the recent related questions raised by Steve Hays?
3) What precisely are the biblical requirements to be a true church to which the author refers?
Might they agree with what 9Marks says about what a church is and does?
To wit:

The church is the God-ordained local assembly of believers who have committed themselves to each other. They gather regularly, they teach the Word, celebrate communion and baptism, discipline their members, establish a biblical structure of leadership, they pray and give together. Certainly the church may do more, but it is not less than this.

The church to which the BAMH author refers does all of these things, and yet it is not a "true church" in his estimation. One could be forgiven for figuring that he won't allow it the title of "true church" because of personal animus, obstinacy, and/or a personal motivation to diminish AHA.

From other statements Pittman and Pastor Speed have made, I know that their stated reason for saying things like this is that the church doesn't currently have elders, and it is unbiblical for a local church to appoint elders by itself, from within its own congregation.

How does this make sense, however?
a. Imagine three Algerian men who separately receive an Arabic New Testament while traveling in France, take a ferry back to Algeria, then the Lord saves all three of them in a short span of time.
Later, in God's providence, the men meet each other and discover they are followers of Jesus, and resolve to follow the NT pattern and commands and meet together regularly for fellowship, encouragement, prayer, worship, and Bible study. Yet because of their isolation and the persecution around them in society, they don't meet another Christian for 10 years, and no Christian older than them for their entire life.
A church? Or not-a-church?

b. Where is the prescriptive teaching in the NT, anywhere, that elders/overseers are only valid when they are appointed by pre-existing elders?
Counterexamples are obvious in history.
Who appointed Martin Luther? Zwingli? Calvin? Do you count by-then apostate Roman ordinations? That's pretty ironic.
Athanasius was removed from his bishopric several times and exiled, yet came back. Does BAMH have some evidence that another elder came alongside and re-appointed him? Does excommunication not mean anything? If church structures are only to be followed in some cases, where is BAMH's definition and explanation?

c. On a related note, Pastor Speed is a Baptist. Does he claim an unbroken chain of elder-to-elder ordination all the way back to the apostles?
Why wouldn't the same criticism be applicable to whoever his episcopal (small-e) forebear was? And wouldn't that mean that his own ordination as elder is invalid, as there would have been nothing that could make that earlier church a true church?

d. Why is it that the men of the earliest church in Acts didn't show an above-all-else interest in establishing elders?
Acts 11:19-25 - Barnabas goes and helps preach the Gospel in Antioch, and yet doesn't stay to establish elders. Rather, he leaves to look for Paul. And yet there comes to be a church in Antioch (as soon as Acts 15:30). How?
Acts 13:44-52 - Paul and Barnabas are driven out of Pisidian Antioch after only about a week.
According to the qualifications for elders in Titus 1 and 1 Timothy 3, an elder can't be a new convert. I suppose we are to assume that no church existed in Pisidian Antioch at that time? Just... a ragtag bunch of people who loved Jesus?
Acts 17:32-18:1 - Paul sees converts in Athens but doesn't stay to train any elders.

e. The Ethiopian eunuch, converted by Philip on the way back to Ethiopia, could never have been a member of a true church, at least not for the years until someone in the chain of ordination running back to the apostles also made it down to Ethiopia to be the elder.
Acts 8:39 - When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away; and the eunuch no longer saw him, but went on his way rejoicing.
I guess the Holy Spirit got a little impatient and forgot that it's a good and wonderful thing for believers to worship together in local churches. He had a brilliant opportunity to delay whisking Philip away until Philip had been able to train the eunuch as an elder himself, then officially ordain him. Instead, the Holy Spirit wasted His chance.

f. Of course, that raises the question of when Philip himself was ordained to do evangelism work. Acts 6:5 indicates that he was selected to serve the daily allotment to the widows on the Jerusalem church's support rolls. No indication is given that he was duly appointed for evangelism ministry.

g. Which means the Holy Spirit was in error for sending him to the eunuch in the first place in Acts 8:29.

h. Which also means that Philip did an evil, rebellious, cowboy thing by preaching the Gospel all by himself in Samaria in Acts 8:5-8.

i. Which means that Peter and John should have rebuked Philip for going way above his pay grade when they arrived in Acts 8:14-17. But they didn't. Another opportunity wasted!

j. Speaking of which, not just Philip but a whole bunch of people were in sin for preaching the Gospel without a license in Acts 8:4. The text seems to speak commendably of them, however. Hmm. Weird.

k. Titus 1:5 - For this reason I left you in Crete, that you would set in order what remains and appoint elders in every city as I directed you...
There weren't elders in Crete before Paul sent Titus to appoint them.
Were there no churches? Where then were the Christians at that time?

l. Why do the long lists of qualifications for the office of overseer in Titus 1 and 1 Timothy 3 include such things as "if anyone desires to be an overseer" but mention nothing about another elder of some other visible local church, unrelated to the church in question and not a member of it, appointing the elder? Is it not, rather, true that if someone is qualified and if one desires to be an overseer, he has fulfilled the biblical qualification?

This statement from BAMH reveals a pharisaical attitude - binding on the conscience of believers a requirement that the Bible does not itself impose.

When "last word" doesn't mean anything

Pastor Jon Speed and Marcus Pittman of Babies Are Murdered Here made a video last month about Abolish Human Abortion.
There are many pieces of material in the video that are false and easily refuted, but we have wanted  to carefully prepare a substantive response, so it is taking a little longer than we hoped. We have only one full time abolitionist to BAMH's at least 2 full timers, after all, and quite a few other full time evangelists team up with BAMH.

However, I post this brief clip of the full-form video, starting at the 12:35 mark or so, to show Pastor Speed's hypocrisy.

First, the clip that is most relevant for our purposes today:



Note his words about no matter what response AHA should make.
Note also that this video was posted 27 March 2013.

And now, I present to you, dear reader, some obvious counter-examples.

(Link, screenshot captured 29 April 2013. 29 April 2013 comes after 27 March 2013 on the calendar.)

 (Link, captured 29 April 2013) Note the other abolitionist who noticed BAMH's hypocrisy.
 

Captured 05 April 2013.

Another thread, 31 March 2013.

Some other passive-aggressive status updates and such that obviously are aimed at AHA:

"...with nobody in command" (screenshot)
Almost two weeks after (screenshot)

Judge for yourself who is being honest here.

Ready, fire, aim

Michael Coughlin has written an ill-conceived hit piece on abolitionists, and one of his comments was so ludicrous that I had to comment.
I don't know whether he will publish the comment, but I figured I'd save it for posterity and publish it here just in case.

----

Maybe if AHA spent as much time protesting idolatry instead of attacking the brethren

1) This is a hypocritical statement, sir. Unless you believe we are unregenerate, then you have also offered a criticism of brethren. By your own standards, you have "attacked the brethren".
If your reply appeals to the basic concept of "Wounds from a friend can be trusted", then why didn't you consider that's precisely what we are doing? How is it that criticism has suddenly been equated to "attack" in these sorts of interactions. It makes no sense.
Are you "attacking" the lost when you do street preaching? Of course not. Be consistent.

2) You did not inform yourself before writing this article, and so your criticism is actually much closer to an attack than what we do or intend to do. We don't pull the trigger until we know whereof we speak. You could learn from us in this.
I'm asking you to acknowledge that you spoke rashly without knowledge, and that you will pray for God's grace to be slower to speak and quicker to listen in the future.

3) Protesting idolatry? Just what do you think abortion is. and what is its source, if not idolatry?

4) Here, read this, please.
What you should have done is asked us about this before speaking.

5) If by "protesting idolatry" you mean speaking out against the errors of Rome, we have done that many, many times.

6) However, Romanism has not resulted in the deaths of 55 million innocent people in this country in the last 40 years. 
Historically speaking, for all of Rome's evil activities and persecutions, I doubt one could plausibly lay 55 million deaths at her doorstep since the first uppity thought occurred to a bishop of Rome. 55 million is A LOT.
And what's more, Rome has put the evangelical church to shame with her pro-life work over 40 years.
Yes, Rome is evil. Yes, Rome preaches a false Gospel. But there are worse things, such as a sin-addicted culture that rejects the Gospel outright and murders children left and right.


we’d believe AHA was really trying to be Christian

Oh, I get it. Our engaging in public criticism of a church about which you know basically nothing for reasons about which you know basically nothing is enough to cast doubt in your minds as to whether we're Christians, despite all we've said and done, all the times we've preached the Gospel and refused to secularise our message.
In that case, sir, we are not at all interested in what you think about us. You should repent, however, of this wicked way of thinking about brethren. It is entirely unbecoming.


Grace, peace, and clearer thinking to you,
Rhology

9Marks on Parachurch Ministries: A Review

I was invited to read this here article from 9Marks, ordinarily a ministry I hold in high regard, about parachurch ministries. Once I'd read about half, I decided a note-taking walkthrough would be more beneficial than a mere reading, and once I had reached the end I realised just how problematic the entire piece was.


The article gets off to a pretty bad start:

From Joel Osteen to John Piper, from Creflo Dollar to Tim Keller, from Joyce Meyer to John MacArthur, it’s difficult to find Christian leaders who don’t lead a parachurch ministry.

Joyce Meyer, Joel Osteen, and Creflo Dollar? These are not Christian leaders. They are not even Christians. So much for discernment.

MARK 1:
No Scriptural commands. This is just his own opinion.

It exists primarily to protect the church.

1) Says who?
2) What does "protect" mean?
3) The church needs protection?

The church has a unique and high ministerial calling that stands above all others: the right teaching and preaching of the Word.

That is not all the church is called to do. The church is commanded to make disciples of all nations, baptising them, teaching them to observe all that Jesus commanded. Teaching and preaching the Word is necessary and awesome, but to say it's "above all others" requires argument, which he didn't give.

A good biblical model for parachurch ministries is found in Acts 6

1) This is again a mere assertion, not an argument.
2) Nothing says that this was a parachurch thing. The church is supposed to provide for widows (cf James 1:27, 1 Timothy 5:9-16). This was a church thing.

And so, it appears that what would become the church’s office of deacon was established to protect the primary ministry of the church, that is, the ministry of the Word.

He arrives at his conclusion via an unwarranted jump.
The primary ministry of *the apostles* was the ministry of the Word, sure. But the church is not the same thing as the apostles, and neither are modern elders.


MARK 2:

Not all gatherings of Christians are “church.”

Here is where the article's assumed and problematic jumps back and forth between Visible Local Church (hereafter, VLC) and Invisible Universal Church (IUC) commence.
So, if he means that not all gatherings of Christians constitute a VLC, agreed.


MARK 3:

A healthy parachurch ministry avoids acting like the church.

It *is* supposed to act like the IUC.
There are certain things non-VLC entities shouldn't normally do that VLCs do, certainly, such as establish elders.
But what about the other things he mentioned that VLCs do?

--commit themselves to each other
IUC is supposed to be committed to each other, to love each other, etc. We are supposed to love the brethren. Look at the way the churches participated in Acts, the way the churches accepted Paul in the various epistles like Philippians and Philemon.

--gather regularly
"Parachurch ministries" can do this.

--teach the Word
"Parachurch ministries" can do this.

--celebrate communion
To be honest, I have always taken it as a given that the Lord's Table should be celebrated among VLC, and that does seem to be the actual practice of the earliest church in Acts.
Acts 2:42They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.
Acts 2:46Day by day continuing with one mind in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart, 47praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord was adding to their number day by day those who were being saved.
And of course, 1 Corinthians 11:17-33.

If communion is not to be closed, however, it is open to not-strictly the people of the VLC on any given day; rather members of the IUC can partake as well.

--baptise converts
Like Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch? Or Philip in Samaria? That guy was just a crazy renegade! He should have been disciplined for his impudence, daring to take it upon himself to baptise people who were getting saved.

Or like Luke 9:
49John answered and said, “Master, we saw someone casting out demons in Your name; and we tried to prevent him because he does not follow along with us.” 50But Jesus said to him, “Do not hinder him; for he who is not against you is for you.”


--discipline their members
It's true that there are specific instructions in the NT for expelling persons from a VLC for specific reasons.
But here are a few things to think about:
1) If someone is excommunicated for good reason from a solid VLC, should I as a member of a different VLC just ignore their excommunication? Isn't that part of the point behind the SBC's "letters of __ standing", sent from one church to the church a particular person is applying to join?
2) Are the following Scriptures only directed at people who were within the walls of the one particular VLC and were excommunicated?
2 Tim 3:1But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. 2For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, 4treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power; Avoid such men as these.
Sentiments such as Psalm 101:7He who practices deceit shall not dwell within my house; He who speaks falsehood shall not maintain his position before me.
Is it totally OK for me to accept a Titus 3:10 person into my church, given how they acted before?
10Reject a factious man after a first and second warning, 11knowing that such a man is perverted and is sinning, being self-condemned.

A "parachurch org" can just as easily create a code of conduct modeled after Scripture as a VLC can create a confession/bylaws/constitution. And a "parachurch org" can fail to do so just as easily as VLCs can and do.


--establish a biblical structure of leadership

If Acts 6 is an example of a parachurch org, then this can be done as well, since one could be at least forgiven for thinking the biblical structure of leadership would presumably be the way the Acts 6 parachurch org was set up.


--pray and give together

Parachurch orgs can do that just as well as VLCs can. Why? Because they're supposed to be populated by members of the IUC.

So, it turns out that there is not really a whole lot of difference here. Sure, a VLC is distinct from not-a-VLC, but not all not-a-VLCs are created equal.


MARK 4:

parachurch leaders will tell “the Church” what “the Church” needs to do. They will advise it to partner with Catholics...to become more relevant,

These would be poor examples of telling a VLC what to do. But there are other ways that VLCs get stuff wrong. For example, numerous of them DO partner with Romanists, and numerous of them ARE becoming more "relevant" in a bad way. It is a good thing for them, a helpful and loving thing, to offer correctives and admonish them.

Would this author contend that, say, Pirate Christian Radio, CARM, or Grace To You (if you doubt GTY's status as a parachurch org, why was John MacArthur mentioned in the opening paragraph?) are therefore exhibiting signs of poor health, because they tell VLCs not to partner with Romanists and not to give in to passing fads of "relevance"? These are parachurch orgs, after all, admonishing VLCs of which they are not a part.

(1) Christ loves the Church. (2) This love for the Church expresses itself in a concern for her purity and faithfulness. (3) Lack of purity and faithfulness are met, in the example of Rev. 2-3, with letters of reproof and exhortation. (4) We also have the mind of Christ. (5) Therefore, if we love the Church as we ought, we will also be concerned with her purity and faithfulness, and speak up to exhort and reprove our fellow brothers and sisters as need arises.

to patch holes in the gospel by caring for the poor

I am unsure what this statement means, but it does not bode well for the strength of this author's overall powers of discernment.

But if this inclination is not tempered by a clear understanding of the differences between church and parachurch, these well-meaning church members will pressure the church to look and act like a parachurch ministry.

This sentence circles back on the rest of the article, like a snake swallowing its own tail. The proper differences haven't been substantiated or laid out in Scripture yet.

Parachurch ministries often have the luxury of ignoring secondary doctrines.

VLCs often do too. Not all VLCs have extensively detailed confessions of faith to which they subscribe, if not slavishly, quite strictly. A significant number of VLCs in America don't have much of a confession at all, don't require any sort of explicit assent to it if they do, don't take action if a member, say, blogs or Facebooks things contrary to that confession or even teaches those things in Sunday School or small group, and wouldn't have the cojones to initiate church discipline toward such a person in any case.
What's the difference again?

I didn’t care that much about the mode of someone’s baptism when I was in a parachurch ministry.

The author might have been in the wrong parachurch org.
Perhaps he'd like to direct his criticism at Dr James White and Alpha & Omega Ministries, for allowing real live pædobaptists like James Swan and TurretinFan to post on his blog and even occasionally sit in for him during his Dividing Line broadcasts.
There are also VLCs in this world that allow for membership to both credobaptists and pædobaptists. I am friends with a man in South Africa who attended just such a church for years.

But a healthy parachurch ministry should avoid pressuring a church to dismiss church doctrine that may not have much meaning in a parachurch context, but which has a real impact on the health of the church.

The author needs to flesh this out more. To what is he referring? How would such things deleteriously affect the health of the church? Does criticism create a negative impact on church health? How so?
The leaps he is making are severe.


MARK 5: No argument here.
Let us note, however, that where the "rocks of history are strewn with the shipwrecks of parachurch ministries", those same rocks boast the corpses of many, many VLCs as well, probably more than "parachurch orgs".
We *all* need to heed the warnings of Scripture. It is possible for a VLC to lose her lampstand. It is possible for a presumed member of the IUC to be a false convert, or a hidden reef, a concealed antichrist.
2 Corinthians 13:5 applies to all professing Christians, not just those who don't happen to be meeting with their VLC at the time or who do things with other Christians outside their VLC.


MARK 6: No argument here.
Again, though, the same things can be said of VLCs. There are VLCs in the world that boast tens of thousands of members, and "parachurch orgs" that have a handful.

The danger of pragmatism is that we can begin to trust in skill, techniques, or programs more than we trust in the Spirit’s work or in the clear commands of Scripture.

Has the author been paying attention to recent patterns and issues within the Southern Baptist Convention at all?


MARK 7: No argument here.
Again, though, the same things can be said of VLCs. There are VLCs in the world that boast annual budgets worth $tens of millions, and "parachurch orgs" that have $a few dozen to their name.

I was speaking to a friend about her move to the head office of a large parachurch organization. She said that,as she began to get to know the office culture, she made two lists of people in the office: one list of those who were godly, and another list of those who were in power. And she said—tellingly—that they were different lists.

Replace "parachurch organization" with "VLC" here, and is it any less credible an account?

Nothing so endangers the health of a parachurch ministry than suppressing discussions about gospel faithfulness out of fears that it might hurt the donor base.

It may surprise the author to know that we abolitionists are familiar with some VLCs that suppress discussion about Gospel faithfulness out of fears that it might hurt the donor base.


MARK 8: More of the same.

One of the best reasons for a parachurch ministry to exist is to bring people together who are passionately committed to the gospel but who might not agree on every secondary doctrine.

One of the best reasons for a VLC to exist is to bring people together who are passionately committed to the gospel but who might not agree on every secondary doctrine.

To be healthy, all parachurch ministries must maintain a deep commitment to the core of Christianity—the gospel—no matter what else they do. Beware of any parachurch organization that does not hold to the gospel with a firm grip.

To be healthy, all VLCs must maintain a deep commitment to the core of Christianity—the gospel—no matter what else they do. Beware of any VLC that does not hold to the gospel with a firm grip.

Most parachurch ministries have a doctrinal confession that clearly articulates the gospel. But does it matter? Is it relevant on a day-to-day basis?...There is almost nothing more corrosive to a parachurch ministry than a doctrinal statement that has become irrelevant.

Most VLCs have a doctrinal confession that clearly articulates the gospel. But does it matter? Is it relevant on a day-to-day basis?
There is almost nothing more corrosive to a VLC than a doctrinal statement that has become irrelevant.

MARK 9:

But here is a way for parachurch ministries to be protected by the church: if more parachurch ministries sought accountability relationships from a church, both for individuals and for the organization as a whole, they would find themselves protected from the dangers implicit in marks 2 through 8.

So if a VLC is empowered and asked to hold a parachurch org accountable, that's great and welcome.
But is it "not protecting" the church if the reverse should hold?
Are wounds from a friend trusted or despised (Proverbs 27:6)?

A healthy parachurch ministry needs transparent and honest relationships with evangelical churches,and should invite critique from those churches.

But healthy VLCs don't need transparent and honest relationships with other evangelical VLCs, and should not invite critique from those churches?

Parachurch organizations are not above reproach. Defensive postures on the part of parachurch ministries are indications of illness.

VLCs are not above reproach. Defensive postures on the part of VLCs are indications of illness.

Parachurch organizations would gain much from submitting, as an organization, to the leaders of healthy gospel-centered churches.

This is of course true, but it's almost tautological. Of course Christians are to submit to each other in love, and supposed to admonish each other in love.
And all members of the IUC are supposed to be members of a VLC, and each VLC is supposed to have biblical leadership, in normal circumstances and when possible. Again, the author isn't saying anything to set parachurch orgs apart.


CONCLUSION:

But we should never forget that his chosen method for the expansion of the kingdom is his church.

Yes, the IUC. Plenty of VLCs have fallen by the wayside (such as all 7 from Revelation 1-3) and many more will follow them. Yet members of the IUC do all sorts of things for the kingdom of God. Where is the biblical injunction to restrict all activities for the kingdom of God to the VLC? The author hasn't provided one. In fact, he barely touched Scripture at all during his article.

Witnesses to three murders

An Apology to the Atheist Hub

The Atheist Hub and the Therefore God show invited me on to their program to talk about abortion, their interest evidently piqued somewhat by the comment box debate EssenceOfThought and I had over at my most recent video offering.

We worked out the details of the show, and the program (I guess they actually do it live via Google Hangout) was going to take place this Saturday afternoon Central time. I initially agreed to do it but then upon trying to work out the details of where I would be and all that, given my plans with my family this weekend, I realised that I would not be able to devote the necessary time to sitting in front of my laptop.

I have posted an apology publicly and have privately addressed my apologies to the Atheist Hub, and I would like this also to stand. They did not mistreat me in any way. The cancellation is on me.

I hope we can reconnect some time in the near future. I regret this, as it would have been an enjoyable time, I am sure. 

Why wait?

So a convicted rapist of a 13 year old girl in Oklahoma is threatening suicide if the state doesn't pay for sex-change therapy.

Don't let the door hit you on the way out of this life, buddy.

I mean, he wasn't even smart enough to molest a child in California. He'd have gotten his sex change, no muss, no fuss. Location, location, location.

Meanwhile, also in Boston

More than a hundred other people were murdered by well-paid hitmen.

No arrests so far.

On Ed Dingess and covering for apathy

Dr Ed Dingess has replied to our rebuttal of his original critique of our position. Let's analyse together his reply.

(FYI: It appears that he only remembered he was talking to AHA and not Triablogue halfway through the composition of his article.)

Dr Dingess begins with his opinion "that abortion is murder and should never be considered a viable option to manage an unwanted pregnancy". Good, we can agree on that. One of the themes that we will see emerge in our analysis will be: What is the Christian to do about the fact that we agree that abortion is murder, and that abortion is widespread and has happened 55+ million times in 45 years?
Is God pleased with empty words, or convictions held forth and confirmed in action?

Dr Dingess helpfully gives us the entire premise of his argument, namely:
The entire premise of my argument is really quite simple: it is not the place of the Church to abolition (sic) human abortion in our society. The Church, believe it or not, has a higher calling. She is charged with preaching the gospel, baptizing those whom God converts, and turning those converts into disciples.

We appreciate Dr Dingess' clarity of expression here, but we disagree significantly for the reasons stated in our previous article. Dr Dingess apparently holds that discipleship of believers, teaching them to obey ALL that Christ commanded, is not accomplished in the context of performing good works of love, protection, assistance, agitation, etc. Not to put words in Dr Dingess' mouth, but if training in good works aren't included in discipleship, would be propose restricting such discipleship to the consumption of theological treatises and Bible studies?

Yet what does the Scripture say about that?
Titus 2:14 - who gave Himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed, and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds.

Ephesians 2:8-10 - For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.

James 1:27 - Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.

And, with tongue half-in-cheek:
Ecclesiastes 2:12 - But beyond this, my son, be warned: the writing of many books is endless, and excessive devotion to books is wearying to the body.
(Abolitionists love books; don't get us wrong.)


She extols Christ’s values before the world community.

Not by hanging out behind her walls. Nor by restricting herself to preaching the Gospel. We are commanded by the Lord Jesus and the rest of the Scripture to do ALL that He commanded, to love our neighbors as ourselves.
Dr Dingess seems to be operating under the mistaken belief that preaching the Gospel and zeal for good works are mutually exclusive. They are not. Abolitionists' daily work is living proof thereof. Come to think of it, so was Jesus' own earthly ministry.
Matthew 4:23 - Jesus was going throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness among the people.



the Church is not an institution that should focus her time and attention on social transformation or political reform.

Dr Dingess' mistake here is to play with words, such that "love of neighbor" is arbitrarily transmogrified into "social transformation or political reform". Loving one's neighbor is not primarily either of those things.
If, however, the society and the current political zeitgeist entirely accepts the systematic murder of preborn (or Jews, or "Negroes", or the elderly, or disabled), then we are against the world, for the world. If our task of loving neighbor brings us into conflict with the world system, is that not the example of the Lord Jesus and His apostles?
Is Dr Dingess attempting to insulate himself behind a cloak of piety and religious language from the needs of his preborn neighbors? There is no way to know, but this would certainly be a convenient excuse for inaction.
And that's a problem, for the lazy and unregenerate false brother could easily grab onto this type of argument to ward off conviction of sin. It's actually dangerous for everyone's soul. It is one step away from antinomianism and covers for the false convert, which is bad both for the false convert and the church of which he may be a member.


It is likely that if we in the Church did a better job turning converts into disciples, we would have fewer John Wayne Christians running around rebuking pastors and elders for not getting on board with their personal agendas and pet projects.

This is no doubt true, though if Dr Dingess is implying that abolition is a "personal agenda", which is unclear, he needs to argue against what we have contended already.
We would also no doubt have fewer elders and pastors (and members) who waste time and resources doing things the Lord has not commanded while neglecting the weightier matters of the law of God.


POINT ONE

The author fails to recognize that a necessary connection between the church and AHA would equate to a divine imperative to adopt the views and practices of AHA.

Rather, Dr Dingess has confused abolition, the ideology and the God-ordained responsibility of His people, with naming the name of "abolitionist" or "Abolish Human Abortion". We don't care a whit if anyone ever uses our symbol, calls himself an abolitionist, or ever talks to us.
Philippians 1:15-18 - Some, to be sure, are preaching Christ even from envy and strife, but some also from good will; the latter do it out of love, knowing that I am appointed for the defense of the gospel; the former proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition rather than from pure motives, thinking to cause me distress in my imprisonment. What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed; and in this I rejoice.

Not that abolition is identical to preaching Christ (rather, it is simultaneous and alongside). Abolition is commanded by God, and "go forth and make disciples" is commanded by God. Both are law. What we mean is that we want people to obey Jesus, not be part of a clique.
It is certainly true that "AHA is not a necessary part of the Church of Jesus Christ." Abolition is, though.


The Church can legitimately exist as the Church without complying with and adhering to the views and practices of AHA.

This is one of the central points in this dispute.
Dr Dingess capitalised "Church", which leads us to believe that he refers to the invisible church, the universal group of people who belong to Jesus, who have been born again, and redeemed. There are no unbelievers in the invisible church.
Each visible local church will probably contain both unregenerate people as well as members of the invisible church.

But the problem here is identifying who is in The Church and who is not.
Matthew 7:21-23 “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. “Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ “And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; DEPART FROM ME, YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS.’

There are false converts out there. They do not love the law of God, nor the Gospel. They merely pretend, yet they can be part of a given local visible church.
If someone does not love one's neighbor, is his faith not dead, a mere shadow of what it ought to be, and false?
James 2:14-17 - What use is it, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but he has no works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and be filled,” and yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that? Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself.

This is nothing new. No one should be assured that he will find himself admitted into Heaven at the end of his life if he refuses to help love his neighbor who is in need when asked to, when reproved for his inaction, for his immunity to reproof and instruction in the Scripture displays a heart of unbelief.
Who is in need more than the preborn child, of whom 55 million have been murdered in this country alone? We asked Dr Dingess that question last time, but we don't see an answer so far.


That insistence, which shows up throughout the website is without merit. In short this method of reasoning is related to the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy.

Dr Dingess is a bit confused here. One can't help but wonder if he wanted to adorn his poor argument here with some Latin dressing.


There are a variety of ways to oppose abortion and to love unborn children.

Dr Dingess is too ignorant of AHA to know that we have been saying that from the very beginning.


It illegitimately applies the command to love one’s neighbor to the unborn and it also equivocates on what it means to love.

This statement literally caused us to laugh out loud the first time we saw it.
So, Dr Dingess really thinks that saving preborn children from murder "equivocates on what it means to love"? Perhaps Dr Dingess would prefer a 21-gun salute to show posthumous tribute to the dead? Yet what good would that do anyone?
Would Dr Dingess really argue that the preborn are not our neighbors? Yet he thinks abortion is murder. He can't hold to both; he must choose.


This argument involves argumentum ad verecundiam, or an appeal to inappropriate authority.

More Latin dressing. Simply read back and see whether we appealed to Wilberforce or Garrison as authorities. Rather, we reminded the reader of their lives' work as examples of which we ought to be thankful.


It also begs the question on the issue of slavery assuming biblical condemnation of the practice without showing any concern for the need to prove that thesis.

So Dr Dingess believes that antebellum American slavery may have been justified.


Where is the exegetical support that teaches us that all slavery is a sin?

Two responses:
1) We don't need to show that all slavery is a sin. We'd just need to show that antebellum American slavery was, for our point to stand.
2) Even if slavery weren't a sin, it is far from the ideal. We can be thankful for these men's work even if they merely spent their lives trying to move our society from the acceptable to the better.


Otherwise, those who issue the mandates are guilty of asserting “thus says the Lord God,” when the Lord God has not said!

The Lord God has most certainly said that we are to love our neighbor as ourselves.


POINT ONE (C) - THE CHURCH

The attitude in the author’s argument demonstrates a seriously defective ecclesiology.

To paraphrase Dr Dingess here: I am also requesting exegetical proofs that such a contention is true. I do not approve of defective ecclesiology. But that is not the point. My reasons for disapproval are apparently far from those of Dr Dingess. If anyone will lay mandates on the Church, I am well with my rights to demand that all such mandates be shown to be the product of sound exegetical practice. Otherwise, those who issue the mandates are guilty of asserting “thus says the Lord God,” when the Lord God has not said! And this, indeed, is a most serious issue, far more than many in the modern American watered-down Christianity realize.


Christ authorizes ministry through His Church and only through His Church.

See here and here, please.


In addition, these cowboy Christians as they are so prone to do, due to their personality, will often turn around and make demands of the Church and her pastors and elders, accusing them of apathy, being misguided, not caring, in need of revival, etc.

Is the accusation the problem? Or is Dr Dingess pre-emptively saying that it is not true, by and large?


the men who are supposed to be their leaders will often find themselves the target of criticism

Are church leaders above criticism?


much of it from a distinctly uneducated vantage point

Is not Dr Dingess expressing his prejudice rather than examining us as in specific?
These are great warnings to heed. Sure, let's avoid these practices. But where is Dr Dingess' evidence that such is true of AHA?


All leaders and ministries must come under the authority and guidance of God’s ordained leaders, under the Church.

Where is Dr Dingess' Scriptural evidence that this is true?


POINT TWO

if AHA is a ministry of God, then darkness has no place in it. And if AHA permits the ungodly and the deceived to partake of Christian ministry, that is a entirely different problem deserving more serious attention.

If Dr Dingess' local church is a ministry of God, then darkness has no place in it. And if his local church permits the ungodly and the deceived to partake of Christian ministry, that is a entirely different problem deserving more serious attention.

Of course, we agree. Yet no one is omniscient. God brings such things to light in the times He chooses. Sometimes false brethren hang out for a long time among the true brethren. May the Lord be merciful to all gatherings of His people to correctly distinguish!


In addition, there is the question of females preaching at abortion clinics as well.

We admit to disagreeing that the outside of an abortion clinic is actually a church.


This is precisely why submission and supervision by pastors and elders is indispensable.

Because pastors and elders would tell us that the outside of an abortion clinic is a church and therefore our women should be silent there?
What room does Dr Dingess' position have for the obvious, that pastors and elders are themselves fallible men and sometimes get things wrong, that we are to test everything in light of Scripture, and that authority is no replacement for truth?


POINT THREE

if you don’t do it our way you don’t care, or more subtly, you don’t care like we do if you are doing it differently than we are. We are setting the standards!

We are glad to report that Dr Dingess has misread us. The problem is not that some people prefer to staff a Crisis Pregnancy Center when they could otherwise spend that time preaching outside abortuaries.
The problem is that far too many don't actually do anything.


When you add to this equation the fact that we cannot find a local body of elders and pastors who are actually the spiritual supervisors and leaders of this coalition

If you think about it, it would be strange to insist that a member of the Abolitionist Society of Memphis be subject in some way to elders he doesn't know at a church he's never visited. Each abolitionist is to be subject to his/her own elders, because abolitionists are to be Christians, and Christians are to follow what the Scripture commands.


Who authorized these men to engage in the kind of correction and rebuke of the Church they put forth?

Jesus.
(By the way, what rebuke of the Church is he talking about?)


Can anyone who wants to just decide that “THIS ISSUE” is the most important issue and then proceed to claim it is God’s work

We don't have to "just decide" it. It's not based on our claim. It's what the Word of God clearly says.


If AHA is correct, and you must do as they do and think as they think in order to obey the second commandment

Strawman.


And we also confess there is more than one way to oppose abortion and demonstrate we care about this very important issue.

Yes, we all agree about this.
However, how does this match what Dr Dingess has said above, about how "the Church is not an institution that should focus her time and attention on social transformation or political reform"?
He can't have it both ways. But he has multiplied confusion for his readers by not taking the time to figure out what we are actually saying.


it is highly inappropriate for AHA to assert that it is a divine command and to use pressure and manipulation to intimidate others to get on board or else.

This sort of hyperbolic panic language is actually sort of humorous.
"Pressure and manipulation"? Like what? Does Dr Dingess have some sort of evidence that we have engaged in blackmail or threats to enforce compliance with abolition?
"Intimidate"? By making rational arguments (both written and spoken) and posters that speak persuasively to both the mind and heart?
"Or else"? Again, whom have we threatened? What is Dr Dingess even talking about?


CONCLUSION

Why is it that every time an evil grabs our attention, the first thing some men do is indict the Church?

As it happens, if Dr Dingess had checked, for example, the archives of our blog from the beginning, he'd see that's not what we started with at all.


Why is it the Church's fault that women are killing their babies?

This question is poorly phrased. Rather, we should be asking (and do ask): What does Christianity look like in a culture that murders its children?
Shall we obey Jesus or not?
One of the problems (far from the only problem) we are pointing out is that far too many in the visible church actually do nothing.


Did not Christ warn us that the world would get worse, that wickedness would grow worse, and that the world would hate us?

We asked Dr Dingess this before, and he did not reply, so we ask again: Shall we then do nothing in the face of evil?
No, rather, the Lord has commanded us to work to effect abolition. If He chooses to use us to accomplish it, glory be to His name, for He is worthy.
If He chooses to use us up in that way and yet we fail in the attempt, glory be to His name, for He is worthy.

This we know: The Lord has redeemed us. We can do no less.

What I did today over lunch

We all have our parts to play in effecting abolition. What can you do today?

(Playlist found here.)

On Marcus Pittman and vendettas

Recent events have led me to ponder the following questions: What good is it to say that one is submitted to a local church's leadership if one persistently speaks folly and heaps shame upon that church? What good is actually being submitted to a local church's leadership if that church never helps the submitted person see where he is saying foolish things in widely public arenas?

That's where I am with regard to Marcus Pittman of Crown Rights Media, an organisation that I (and we at Abolish Human Abortion) have wanted to like and with whom I (and we at A//∀) have wanted to work closely. Yet Pittman and his compatriot(s) have been busily engaged in driving us away from them.

This latest example has left me shaking my head more than most of the other examples I've seen.

I had been in a conversation on the Facebook page of the director of the Abolitionist Society of Oklahoma's director, T. Russell Hunter, with an inquirer who was asking me about ecclesiology and whether an individual Christian would ever be in the right if s/he were to call out sin in another group of people who regularly meet in a building on which the sign includes the word "church".

As part of my answer, I told her this:

We don't need to be ordained by some ecclesiastical body, touched on the shoulder with the Scepter of Ecclesiastical Approval, to do what Jesus said.
We need to just go ahead and do what Jesus said.

This is, as far as I'm concerned, a no-brainer. Who seriously thinks that no Christian should do anything until his pastor tells him? Are we to demonstrate no initiative of our own before loving our neighbor? Does Marcus Pittman phone his presbytery to ask them whether he should share the Gospel with Joe Doe on the street (and I'm talking about when he doesn't have a HD camera with him)?

Yet Pittman, though having long since left off any participation in that thread, was waiting with bated breath for someone to say something he could sink his claws into. And in my comment, for whatever reason, he found it!

What the Anti-Church people say "We don't need to be ordained by some ecclesiastical body, touched on the shoulder with the Scepter of Ecclesiastical Approval, to do what Jesus said. We need to just go ahead and do what Jesus said."
What Jesus Said - "Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you."

This is simply laughable.
I am good terms with every church I have ever attended. I recently left one church to join another immediately, and my current church received with joy my family and me into membership 4 weeks ago. My church has two elders.
Yes, I am a credobaptist and thus am a member of a Baptist church. I don't see Pittman ripping Dr. James White with the same type of sloganeering and pathetic fault-finding just because they differ in ecclesiology.

No, this isn't about ecclesiology at all. This is about Pittman (and to some extent his associates) doing what they can to find fault with anyone associated with Abolish Human Abortion.


I entirely and wholeheartedly reject and disaffirm the label "Anti-Church". How dare Pittman say this about a brother. This is a serious accusation of serious sin. One would hope Pittman would have some evidence. Alas, he has none.


Obviously in principle I agree 100% that "We need to just go ahead and do what Jesus said" includes joining and submitting oneself to a church with elder government. Pittman can (and, apparently, just might!) search in vain among the millions of words I've written for any indication I disagree with that.

That to which I object is the Rome-flavored idea that somehow we must await permission from our church's elders before obeying what the Scripture says.
Would Pittman's church's elders really prefer that he ding-dong them before doing good works? Do they need to be the source of every idea for doing good works in which anyone in their congregation engages? Or would they prefer that the congregants take it upon themselves to obey the Scripture with joy, of their own volition? Isn't the job of an elder tough enough without having to write an encyclical granting the faithful the right to obey Jesus every time a new specific possibility pops up?

There is nothing wrong with what I said. If Pittman were engaging his obviously prodigious intellect in fairness, he would see that and assent to it, but he is not inclined to be fair these days, not to brethren against whom he is an acting as an enemy. It is truly sad to see, and I am grieved.

Ed Dingess, the work of the church, and the Gospel

A recent article from one Ed Dingess grants us at Abolish Human Abortion excellent opportunities for clarification of our own position and convictions, and we'd like to take the time to comment at length on Dr. Dingess' statements.

First, though, we'd like to ask anyone who has not read our recent article The "Great Commission" Without Abolition Is Dead to please do so, then return here to read on.

It is unfortunate that Dr. Dingess begins with a very poor understanding of who we are and what we do. The entirety of his article, in fact, seems to take as its reference point no more than two or three pages from our website. We have put out a great deal more material than just that one website, and it would behoove someone who desires to be a thoughtful critic of ours to do a bit more research than that.

That said, this statement:

whose stated purpose is not necessarily to abolish all human abortion, but rather to “instigate,” and to “inspire” pro-life individuals to become more “assertive” and “actively” involved in abolishing abortion

most definitely disturbs us, for it is not what we have intended to communicate. And honestly, re-reading the page to which Dr. Dingess refers, I can sort of see what he means. To that end, plans are in motion to revise the material on our website.
For any reader to come away from our site with the notion that, for example,

There is no necessary connection between this coalition and the Church of Jesus Christ other than the fact that the Church condemns abortion as murder and so too does AHA.

or the notion that

It is telling that the gospel is not referenced until you scroll down nearly to the end of this page

is, like I said, disturbing.

So, we'd like to thank Dr. Dingess for reminding us to reflect our thinking more clearly on our website. Over the past year, we have grown in our understanding of what needs to be done, who we are in relation to this issue, and what really matters. The Gospel has always been central, but thankfully the Lord has been leading us to understand even better the paramount importance of it, so that Jesus take center stage in everything we do and say. Where we have failed to exalt Jesus in any way, we repent here, now, publicly, of it, and we are grateful for the assistance.

We are, after all, fallible human beings.

Having said all that, Dr. Dingess could have gotten a better understanding about us by consuming more material than a few webpages. There are our Daily Abolitionist videos, our videos from the What Must Be Done conference, our blog, especially recent interactions with Roman Catholics and aborticians. So Dr. Dingess would do well to expand his research before commenting on a group like us in this way.

Now, I'd like to move on to topical treatments of parts of Dr. Dingess' commentary.

ABOLITION AND THE CHURCH OF JESUS
Dr. Dingess is entirely incorrect to say that "(t)here is no necessary connection between this coalition and the Church of Jesus Christ". Abolition is a work of the church of Jesus, the invisible church, for it is a work that God demands from each human being, and those who are born again and are indwelt by the Holy Spirit of God will unfailingly desire to do the will of God during our lives.

Of the Two Great Commandments, one is "Love your neighbor as yourself." Right now in this country, 3500 of the smallest and weakest of our neighbors are being murdered every day. If Dr. Dingess or anyone else can find a greater destruction to our neighbor than abortion in the culture to which we have access, we'd certainly like to know about it, that we may turn our attention to abolishing it.
We'd like to ask Dr. Dingess to consider carefully what sort of oversight men like William Wilberforce, or William Lloyd Garrison, had in their pursuits of abolition. Who will stand up for the weakest of our neighbors? Who loves light rather than darkness, so as to expend one's energy, time, resources, etc for people we don't even know? Will this be the work of unregenerate people who love darkness rather than light? No! Just as it was the followers of Jesus who rose up in 2nd century Rome to rescue unwanted babies left on riverbanks and garbage heaps and who rose up in the 18th and 19th centuries to abolish the systematic oppression of people with dark brown skin, once again His followers in the invisible church are rising up to abolish this grossest of violations against love of neighbor in our culture.
The invisible church is just as real as the visible church, the visible church being a mix of partly members of the invisible church and, virtually always, enemies of God. Both churches are real, and both are important. We strive to neglect neither.

Abolitionists, as obedient to all that the Scripture teaches and reveals, are enjoined to be members of a local body of believers. We are men and women under authority, and we are glad to submit ourselves to the authorities that God puts into place.  Yet we fail to see in Scripture where every "ministry" must be under the "authority" of "the pastor" and elders of a local church. We agree with this in the sense that it is good for all Christians to be under the spiritual oversight of godly elders.  But does this mean that any work that a Christian does should be part of an officially-sanctioned program run by an institutional church? Is it not true, rather, that pastors should both desire and exhort the members of their churches to be actively seeking to serve Christ in the world, and not passively waiting for some governing body to issue an edict of what we are supposed to do?

Who is the authority over the work of AHA? It is simply Jesus the Messiah, the King of the universe and of His Church. If we are not being led by Jesus through the Holy Spirit, then we have no business being involved in this work. Jesus alone will direct the building and advancement of His Kingdom. Any mere human effort to add to what Jesus is doing will simply result in wood, hay, and stubble to be burned up in the Final Judgment. We desire that Jesus be both the positional as well as the functional head of our groups and our work.
Dr. Dingess (as well as many, many others who oppose us) functionally conflate the institutional visible church with the true Body and Bride of Christ. The work of abolition is a work of the latter. And the latter is one in Christ, and suffers no true division from institutional and denominational boundaries.


ARE THERE LOST PEOPLE IN AHA?
Of course it is possible, even likely that, there are those who take the name "abolitionist" and yet are unbelievers.

We are not a church. Yet only the most deluded and blind would think that there is no chance that their own church contains no unregenerate people, no false converts. That's the whole point of Jesus' institution and the Apostle Paul's reiteration of the need and proper process for church discipline.

We are up front and honest with everyone, as much as possible, about who we are and our strategies. We evangelise each other, sharing the law and the Gospel day after day.

We tell the unregenerate that we can work together towards the common goal of ending abortion, but we can never truly be on the same page because our core worldviews are different. But why would we tell people who want to work with us to go away? We want to be around non-Christians! There are those of us who resort to going out to the party district of their city late at night when they'd rather be in bed after a long week at work, or take vacation time off work to go onto the university campus, so as to share the law and the Gospel with lost people, and does Dr. Dingess think we should be intentionally telling those who want to be around us to take a hike?


ABOLITIONIST = CHRISTIAN?
One of the biggest problems with Dr. Dingess' article is the representation that we somehow equate being a "member of AHA" with being a Christian.

We never state that all Christians must self-identify with AHA. Again, if that is what people come away with when they visit our About Us page, we want to correct it, so this is another chance for us to sharpen our website.

To answer the question, all Christians must be salt and light in the world. This is the command of Jesus, and it's all over the Bible.
Here is just one place:
Ephesians 2:8-10 - For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.
The good works that don't save us in verse 9 are the same good works that God has created us to do in verse 10.
The opposite of good works is bad works, and bad works are sin. Sin not only damns to Hell, it causes evil in the world, destroys relationships, wrecks communion with God, darkens the heart and spirit, and sears the consience. 1 John makes it clear that a lifestyle marked by sin is an indicator of the unregenerate condition of that person's heart.

Make no mistake, however. We question how it is that someone can call himself a Christian and yet take virtually no action on the issue of abortion. What other social evil is occurring at a level of 3500 deaths per day? Not all Christians need belong to AHA, but all Christians should have an abolitionist spirit and be engaging their culture in some fashion, because the culture is dark and evil, the people are lost and dying, and we have the light, the cure, the solution.

Consistent Christians are abolitionists but not necessarily tied to or self-labeled to associate with AHA. And of course, there is a host of evils out there. Christians can abolish other evils. AHA is not the actual thing we are calling people to. We are calling people to take up their cross, follow Jesus, love God entirely, and love neighbor as self. It's just that this is the way we see it played out in our time and on this issue. This is why we ask, "What does Christianity look like in a culture that murders its children?" Abolition is a principle and ideology that applies to any sin or evil, and as mentioned above, this is the most obvious legal evil facing our nation and the largest violation of love of neighbor at the moment.


DINGESS' PROBLEMATIC VIEW OF GOOD WORKS, SALT AND LIGHT
Dr. Dingess says:

The Church should preach the gospel, condemning abortion along the way without getting distracted by it...The Church cannot afford all these distractions

That is indeed what we are doing, as members of the Body of Christ.

Yet as he goes on to point out later, preaching the Gospel is not all we are commanded to do. We are commanded to teach others to observe all that Jesus commanded, to make disciples, and obviously we are ourselves to obey all that Jesus commanded as we do so. And He said that one of the great commandments is to love neighbor. Well, we see 3500 of our neighbors put to death by their mothers and hired hitmen in this nation of ours. We can't love them if they're dead; we are to deliver the helpless and weak from death.

Yes, this is a by-product of disciple-making. Does Dr. Dingess think that disciples are made only by sitting around and ingesting thousands of pages of theological tomes? We love books; don't get me wrong. We know, however, that actual love walks, talks, and moves. The happy side effect of discipling people as we love neighbor is that the "disciplee", as it were, gets to see how real love is played out, how suffering is endured, how patience is built up, how sin is dealt with, as we live real lives of agitation and assistance.

And see, we just plain disagree that the systematic murder of 55 million children since 1973 is a "distraction". Would Dr. Dingess have adopted the same refrain in the Third Reich in 1943? "We can't afford these distractions of all these Jews being shoved into ovens; let's just make disciples."

One is almost forced to inquire, about such an attitude: Is this real biblical priority expressed here, or is it Bible-y excuse for the fear of man?
Dr. Dingess goes on to make an erroneous point while quoting 1 Peter 2:9-12 for support.

The command to let our light shine comes within the immediate context of keeping the commandments. In other words, the good works referenced by Christ do not emphasize social works. They mean living out the Christian ethic before the world. Peter says as much when he quotes Christ, "But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; for you once were not a people, but now you are the people of God; you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. Beloved, I urge you as aliens and strangers to abstain from fleshly lusts which wage war against the soul. Keep your behavior excellent among the Gentiles, so that in the thing in which they slander you as evildoers, they may because of your good deeds, as they observe them, glorify God in the day of visitation."

A few responses here:

1) Dr. Dingess does not inform us how precisely "social works" are different from "living out the Christian ethic before the world", especially as it pertains to abolition. He may be misunderstanding what we mean by "social works" (though I don't recall any of us using that term and neither our website nor our blog use it). Thus we will thank Dr. Dingess to be more careful in the future with his representation of our own words.

2) If he wants to live out the Christian ethic before the world, I'd like to ask Dr. Dingess what better suggestion he has than abolition, given that 3500 babies per day are murdered in this nation, and 55 million in 40 years.

3) How would Dr. Dingess propose we better keep the commandment to love neighbor as self in this kind of world? He doesn't say.

4) The passage itself says what we are saying. "Keep your behavior excellent", "...your good deeds", etc.

5) The earliest Church, as mentioned, were abolitionists of infant exposure, outright infanticide, abortion, child abandonment, and the gladiatorial games. They apparently thought 1 Peter's command was worth following.

6) This kind of language easily lends itself to supporting the false dichotomy between loving the born and the preborn. We are to love all people, their age unimportant.

7) Dr. Dingess may well profit from this recent article, the aforementioned pre-requisite reading.

8) What will Dr. Dingess make of other commands to do good works in the New Testament, such as Titus 3:14 - "Our people must also learn to engage in good deeds to meet pressing needs, so that they will not be unfruitful"?

Who has a more pressing need than the baby, who is a human being just like you or I, who is about to be murdered by his own mother and the hitman she pays to hold the weapon or administer the weaponised pharmaceutical?

Dr. Dingess states:

Hence, the light and salt argument that AHA puts forth is based on a misunderstanding of Christ’s command. While it may extend to caring for widows and orphans because this is indeed Christian love, it is entirely unrelated to the cause of exterminating social evils such as abortion.

How silly of us think that preborn children abandoned by their parents were orphans!
If one is inclined to be pedantic on this point, shall we conclude that, no, they are merely victims of parental homicide, so let's ignore them?

We are not called to end human trafficking.

1) That's easy for Dr. Dingess to say, living in a culture that still benefits, to this day, from the tireless efforts of men like Garrison, Wilberforce, Clarkson, Sharp, and Lovejoy.

2) We eagerly await Dr. Dingess' doubtless prompt publication of his critique of Louie Giglio's End It movement, in that case. Giglio should stick to making disciples. Those women trapped in sex slavery will figure it out. We have to make disciples.

We are called to live holy and to let the word see that holiness because it is the light of the world and the salt of the earth.

And how do we do that if we see "...a brother or sister (who) is without clothing and in need of daily food, (and we) say to them, 'Go in peace, be warmed and be filled,' and yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body"? "What use is that?" (James 2:15-16)
Does living holy include ignoring the blood of those under the knife, who are suffering death from weaponised pharamaceuticals?

The gospel is not “abortion is murder, Jesus died for sinners, place your faith in Christ."

No, it most certainly is not. Dr. Dingess made that up, and it is difficult to restrain a biting response to such misrepresentation of our position. Hopefully Dr. Dingess will read this article carefully and digest some of our other material before replying and will repent of what he has publicly said. We have never and would never say such a thing; to whom precisely is Dr. Dingess responding?

We will unhesitatingly accept that repentance at that time, for we love Dr. Dingess and long to see him obey Jesus fully as the Holy Spirit gives grace.

More than ever, the Church must distance itself from even the appearance of being a political movement. We are not a wing of the conservative party.

This is true, as "the conservative party" (by which I presume he means the Republican party) hasn't done close to enough! Honestly, it has barely even tried. Of course, political parties aim to be elected next cycle, generally. That's part of the problem.

Nowhere will anyone find any indication that we intend to be a political movement. We are, rather, engaging the culture - all parts of the culture - with the Gospel of Jesus. Jesus is Lord of all, not Lord of some.

There are those who denigrate us as "right-wingers", Republicans, fascists, etc. These are false and unkind pejoratives, which we reject.


ETERNAL?

We have serious work to do that has eternal consequences.

Murder and ignoring murder all around us also has eternal consequences.

And so does the fact that this nation is now without 55 million souls. Might one of those have been one who had as much Gospel potency and impact as a George Whitefield, a John Wesley, or a John Calvin? Might a man like that change some significant eternal consequences in this life?

We'll never know now.


TURNING A BLIND EYE
Perhaps another partial explanation for Dr. Dingess' strategy for not ending abortion is the fact that Dr. Dingess doesn't think that abortion will be abolished:

Human abortion is a very wicked social evil. There is no question about it. It is the law we live with in America. Is it going away? I don’t think it is.

There you go. It's not going away, so why even fight it?
Did Jesus call us to concern ourselves with how this will all turn out in the end? Or did He command us to love our neighbor as self?

Does Dr. Dingess know for sure that "just" preaching the Gospel and making disciples will cause unbelief to go away, that all people will be converted? If not, by this same logic, he shouldn't preach the Gospel or make disciples. If his response is "But Jesus told us to preach the Gospel and make disciples," he has failed to realise that Jesus has also commanded us to love our neighbor, and he has defeated his own objection.

This is the result of shallow thinking. We are to go forth in the strength Jesus provides us, to do what He told us to do. If we fail, we fail, and in our lives and hearts we exalt Jesus. If we succeed, it is all because of Jesus. If we fail, it is to the glory of Jesus, Whose power is made perfect in weakness.

The only way to truly end social ills is through a changed heart, a regenerated mind. That comes from preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ.

This, however, is absolutely right, which is why we welcome Dr. Dingess to join us.

You see, one of the pro-life movement's main strategies has been to ignore the Gospel in its work, searching for larger numbers and more political clout by diluting the message such that they are actually, at this point, hostile to the proclamation of the biblical Gospel. For this they will face fearful judgment, but we are not them. Dr. Dingess, an abolitionist loves neighbor and preaches the Gospel, both, at the same time. You can do both. Let us show you how, as we ourselves learn more and more and better and better how to do it.

Just so I can say I posted something today

Here's a quick convo I had on Facebook with some clueless agnostic.
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You say "religion" has been the #1 cause of deaths throughout human history. I have a few responses:
1) I am not "religious". I am a biblical Christian. I join with you in marking as false all other religions except the one that Jesus taught.
2) As a matter of fact, religion is merely one factor in the tribalistic power struggles that have dominated human history.
3) Sin is the #1 cause of death. Not "religion".
4) If there is no God, if we are all evolved apes and just molecules in motion, so what if death occurs? It's natural, right? It's part of life, right? Who's to say that causing another bag of protoplasm to die more quickly is morally wrong? These are questions you have to answer, but I fortunately don't because Jesus has told me what humanity is about.


You said:
\\I'll say it again I believe science over anything.\\

How do you know that your observations and the observations of scientists won't be contradicted by a massive change in the laws of nature tomorrow?
How do you know they didn't change right before people started writing them down?
How do you know light doesn't travel in a curly-Q fashion 100,000 light years away?


You ask:
\\ What makes you think the persons that will be getting raped believes in God or is part of a church ?\\

Whether she is or isn't, it doesn't matter. I want the church to be a place where everyone can go for help when they are an innocent victim. We'll help her physically and spiritually.



\\ It all boils down to a choice that one individual will make with all beliefs aside of what others think.\\

That's completely false. The baby is not part of the mother's body. She is making a choice that will result in the death of another.  This is unacceptable.



\\I believe it is her choice and no one should have that right other wise to tell her what she can and can not do.\\

But since she is choosing death for another, surely you wouldn't say that's OK, right?
Or is it only SOME people who don't get to choose for another person? How do you know who gets to and who doesn't get to? What do you say to someone who says that the powerful get to choose death for preborn babies AND ALSO for toddlers? Or for babies AND ALSO for non-religious people named Max?


\\I believe that a one week old baby does not have a collect conscience and does not feel nor can think.\\

It's cute that you believe that, but I haven't asked for you to tell me a fairy tale about your beliefs. I asked how you KNOW, and you apparently don't.

Not all abortive women are murderers

I invite you to watch as three women who can hardly be described as victims intentionally and voluntarily devote their children to destruction and death. Then compare that to the current and more popular thought prevalent in our culture today, that women murder their children because they are victims of someone else.

That is, to say the least, not even close to always true.

Norman Abortuary Outreach Report, 15 March 2013

Today was a busy day at the abortuary, sadly.

At least three women were in tears as they went in or came out, but they would not come talk to us. One had to be carried out by the man with her.

A man escorted a woman in, came out and drove away, came back, came out to smoke (and I preached the law and Gospel to him while he was there though he never responded), came out and drove away, then came back and went in, then came out with his girl. He heard a lot of law and Gospel. He also accepted a New Testament but didn't seem very affected by anything.

A family went in with two young children, toddler and preschooler. This was heartbreaking.

Also heartbreaking was the young woman who was very visibly pregnant and yet flipped us off as she entered.

One young man escorted a girl inside and dialogued with me a bit about abortion and how he was an atheist.

One young lady was going in for a diagnostic procedure and she was not pregnant. We asked her to go to another doctor from now on. She said it's a woman's choice to abort. We spent some time breaking down that view. She accepted a NT with some material in it as she was leaving.

Another couple went in, cussing me out, and later emerged. Shane said something about how she was a mother and she responded with a sneer, "Not anymore."

WinterJam 2013 Evangelism

Shane and I went out to address the thousands of people waiting in line to get into WinterJam 2013 at the Oklahoma City Chesapeake Arena recently.