Calvinism and the Presumed Gospel

Calvinists, as we all know, don’t evangelize.  Why should we?  If God is going to save the lost of this world, He can do so quite well without us!

So why are Reformed Christians among the most vocal complainers against modern preaching which simply presumes the gospel?  Why does Calvinism go hand in hand with a rigid insistence that preachers must proclaim the gospel regularly – some would say incessantly?

I reflected on this again recently as I concluded a second round of preaching regularly in Christian school chapels.  In my teaching years I preached weekly to all ages of kids, and now I’ve had the opportunity to reprise that role in my own sons’ school gymnasium.  The great difference is that I’m not in the school daily and don’t know the kids nearly as well as I did years ago.  Neither do I know their churches, so no open letters will be forthcoming.

Still, I assume what I learned before and have previously said in this space: the children of evangelical churches may well be the greatest unreached people group I will ever encounter.  It’s true; I preach to some thoroughly broken down men at the local rescue mission who know the gospel far better than “church kids.” 

As my own children grow up, I increasingly understand why.  Whenever we venture outside the doors of our own church into broader Christendom, we run into a constant stream of gospel-less teaching.  “Jesus will make you a better student.”  “Jesus can make you the sort of man you want to grow up to be.”  “Jesus teaches you how to play nicely with others.”  “Jesus is the key to good sportsmanship.”  “Jesus wants us to have fun.”  It’s the Nickelodeon version of the prosperity gospel.

Such statements run the gamut from biblical accuracy to sheer fantasy, but all have one thing in common: they are not the gospel.  It seems like every Christian is running around serving as a spiritual life-coach to the kids, assuming someone else has already explained to them how Jesus saves sinners.  But who exactly does the evangelism?  Some parents, granted, but experience tells me not to count on it.  Neither can pastors be counted on to preach clear, simple gospel messages, and if the kids are stranded in perpetual youth “ministries,” forget about it!

Years ago Reformed parents worried about letting their kids go mingle with Arminians lest they be induced to walk an aisle in a silly, uncomprehending way.  Those days are gone.  Now we’re grateful if anyone bothers to mention salvation at all.  The strange part is that I suspect many – maybe most – of these adults actually love the gospel.  Some might be second (or third?) generation representatives of gospel-less religion, but many cling to the mercies of Christ and remember the cross in their darkest hours.  So why don’t they talk more about the gospel?

Perhaps crucifixion and resurrection are so basic that we all just assume everyone knows them.  My oldest son was only four when he interrupted my retelling of Christ’s death to say, “Dad, I already heard this one before.”  If the gospel is the basic knowledge that everyone already knows, do we really want to keep pounding on it day after day?

Some basic knowledge is presumed after a while.  I don’t remember any high school literature classes that began with singing the “ABC” song.  The gospel, though, is different.  There are other truths in the Bible, but we must never neglect the fundamentals of Christ’s saving work.

As a Calvinist, I know why. 

The message of the gospel is simple enough for little children to understand, but the heart of man is corrupt and will not absorb the things of God.  A person may sit in church for forty years and hear the gospel time and again until he can recite it by rote, yet never comprehend or trust.  Such is the depth of our depravity. 

Such people sit there weekly in your church and in mine.  Merely brushing shoulders with us doesn’t do anything for them.  You can take a corpse to a crowded ballpark, but he won’t watch the game.  Unless the Spirit grants resurrection, the dead remain dead.  The only hope of any person, regardless of his church or family background, is that the Spirit of God will call him savingly unto Christ.    

Yet we are not left without recourse.  The Spirit calls the dead to life, and He does so through certain means.  As the Westminster Shorter Catechism expresses it, “The Spirit of God maketh the reading, but especially the preaching of the Word, an effectual means of convincing and converting sinners…” (Q 89).  Indeed, the Spirit says so Himself in Romans 10:14-17.  That is why we must preach the gospel.  Preaching saves no one, but without gospel preaching, who can be saved?

So, as I told my son, I will continue to tell him about the death and resurrection of Jesus with annoying frequency, all the while praying that the Spirit grants him life.  This is also why Calvinists – who understand depravity, grace, and regular means – protest so loudly when pastors fail to preach the death and resurrection of Christ but instead presume that everybody already knows.

As for the kids at Grace Christian Academy, my plan was simple: I evangelized them. 

All year. 

Because I’m a Calvinist.

Life and Worship

Throughout the various debates and friendly arguments I’ve had about the Sabbath, perhaps the most annoying line of reasoning I have heard is the fellow who says, “I don’t need to observe a Sabbath; every day for me is a Sabbath!”  Whether or not you are a Sabbatarian, I hope you can see that this is simply rubbish.  The essence of the Sabbath is (or was) differentiation.  For six days do all that you must do to live.  Do it to God’s glory, yes, but do it in six days, and then – on the seventh day – do something completely different.  Anyone who pretends to have seven Sabbaths a week actually has none – and that should be evident even to those who believe that we should have none.

Regardless of where you stand on that question, every Christian ought to at least understand that God has called His people to assemble together to worship Him.  This is as clear in the New Testament as in the Old.  The Jerusalem church is described again and again as being together.  Paul and his cohorts established local assemblies, not rogue Christians who saw no need of assembly because they were in the church universal.  Christians are urged not to forsake the assembly. 

The rather obvious reality is that we are meant to gather regularly to read God’s Word and to hear it preached, to sing praises and offer up prayers together as one body, to meet with God and to edify one another.  This is called “worship.”  It is, according to Hebrews 10, an entering into the presence of God through Christ – something which requires assembling together.  It is a formal audience with God.  Like Sabbath, it is something which by definition is differentiated from the rest of life. 

Now it is obviously true that in all of life we serve God and glorify Him.  “Whatever you do, do it all to the glory of God.”  Paul meant “whatever choice you make in matters of liberty of conscience,” but his point is the same.  Something as mundane as eating or refusing meat can be an act of service to the Creator and should be done with His glory in mind.  But it is not worship.  There is a differentiation which comes in the assembly – that formal audience with the Almighty.

So what are we to think of the Christian who says that all of life is an act of worship?  It sounds nice, but it is unrealistic.  Replace “worship” with “service” and you have a great truth, but retain “worship” and you lose something precious by flattening the contours of the Christian life.  When you worship, your sisters and brothers – who share in the Spirit – enable you to approach God in a unique manner which should not be defined away.  That uniqueness is critical in the Christian life precisely because it cannot be duplicated.  The Christian does not duplicate it in his prayer closet; neither does the pastor duplicate it in his study.

All of life really is not worship, but consider: if life is lived in the service of God and to the glory of God, and if in that life the assembly of the Saints is our opportunity to approach God in a unique way and worship Him, is not that time of worship the crowning moment of life?  Is it not the reason for which the Christian lives?  Should not public worship be the central reality of every Christian life?

All of life is not worship; all of life is crowned by worship.

Offense, Offending, the Offended, and Offensiveness

I have just returned from the Banner of Truth Ministers Conference, and as always I found it a time of great delight.  For me, to travel to Banner is to return home.  I drive through country in which the shape of the hills is etched into my soul.  I never miss the opportunity to have a meal with one of my dearest friends.  If the Banner Conference were not held in central Pennsylvania I would suffer a personal loss. 

I would, however, still make a priority of this annual journey.  Deeper blessings are found in conversation with like-minded men, including those of other denominations.  But what astonishes about the Banner is that year after year there are four or five speakers, mostly men of whom you have never heard drawn from among the regular attendees, and yet the quality does not suffer.  There is a consistency of approach which feeds the spirit, and I never fail to return with a renewed enthusiasm for the work of preaching.

If “experimental Calvinism” is a concept easily twisted, this conference seeks to maintain it as it ought to be – the piety and worship known among the Puritans.  Unswerving commitment to biblical fidelity and doctrinal accuracy is wedded to a keen desire to touch the soul. 

Occasionally the lineup is either leavened or adulterated with a mega-pastor who is thought – rightly or wrongly – to share the Banner ethos.  This year’s conference was an example of the latter.  We really could have done without the chest-pounding.  In about three minutes our keynote speaker managed to say that all the small churches in which he ever pastored suffered from a failure to appreciate him, that it’s all OK now because he’s in a really big, really cool pulpit, that he’s no longer a Baptist because we are all biblically illiterate, that given ten minutes to debate he could wipe the floor with every one of us, but that he had to refrain because the conference organizers and his wife said so.  He then made one argument (on a subject he had just said he would not address) which demonstrated nothing so much as his entire ignorance of what every single Baptist present in that meeting actually believes. 

It was an impressive three minutes, but he was not finished.  A bit later he returned to the theme of his own spiritual prowess long enough to say that he trusts no one but himself to teach his church, because he has learned by long experience that such trivialities as elders and other teachers are far too easily over-estimated. 

Now I ought to say a few things by way of qualification.  I am not offended by any Presbyterian who believes that he is right about baptism while I am wrong; in fact I wouldn’t quite know what to do with one who did not think so.  I am not some weak flower who cannot stand to hear an argument against my position, or even to endure some proper jesting.  I managed to survive three years of being called “Tom the Baptist” at a Presbyterian seminary, and I did so with several good friendships intact.  But insufferable grandstanding in a conference known for Reformed Ecumenicism did seem out of place, and I was rather offended on behalf of my brother-in-law in the pew with me, a (Presbyterian!) ruling elder who spent a week of his vacation to travel half-way across the country for some encouragement in his ministry, only to be told that he was unworthy and might as well go home. 

But the most important qualification is this: at no point did I think that this nonsense reflected on the Banner of Truth.  I knew that the preacher was  breaking the rules (he said so himself), and that moments like this are almost unknown in that setting.  In fact, it was heartening to discover during the next day that the Presbyterian brethren were shocked and appalled at the treatment of the Baptists, just as we teaching elders were shocked and appalled at the treatment of the ruling elders. 

So why do I bring this up?  Only because, as awful a moment as this was, it became for me the great learning moment of the conference.  The lesson was driven home not during the first night, but on the second, when the same preacher took to the pulpit and delivered what I suspect must have been a pretty good sermon.  Only I benefited nothing from it – nothing at all.  The reason was plain: I did not come to the meeting ready to worship or even to be taught.  I came wary and cautious, ready to pounce (inwardly and quietly, I hope) at the first sign of more absurd, macho posturing.  That the posturing never came made no difference. 

We speak sometimes of sitting “under” the preaching of the Word.  It is an apt phrase, for the wise Christian listens to the preached Word as one who is under the authority of Christ and the Spirit.  He approaches preaching as a servant approaches his master, waiting for instruction and direction.  That is how I approached the sermons which blessed me so much at the conference, and also how I approached the first evening session.  On the second evening, though, I did not sit under the preaching, but over it.  I do not mean that I searched the Scriptures to see whether it was true, but I that came with suspicion and a readiness to repudiate anything offensive, and that attitude robbed me of any potential blessing that lurked within the message.

And yes, that is my fault.  I own that.  But I also know – being a preacher – that sometimes it’s the preacher’s fault too. 

Now don’t worry, this is not about to turn into an episode of Law and Order: Special Tone Police Unit; that happens weekly on another blog.  So let me make this clear: sometimes offense is a good thing. 

In the first place, the gospel is full of offense.  To tell a man that Jesus is perfect but he is not is to offend his pride.  To tell him that the Father punished His Son in the place of His avowed enemies is to insult his intellectualism.  And to tell him that God calls him to repentance and a life of holiness is to insult his flesh.  There is an offense which comes not from preachers, but from their God, and they have no choice but to proclaim it. 

Further, we cannot read the Scriptures closely without recognizing that offending some folks is actually a virtue.  I do not know how else we can understand Elijah’s mockery of the prophets of Baal, Paul’s fierce rhetoric against the party of circumcision, or even our Lord’s evisceration of the Pharisees.  And no, I am neither a prophet nor an apostle, and certainly not a savior.  Nevertheless the truth is evident: some persons simply demand a bit of offending. 

Then of course there are others who make a habit of being offended daily, and twice on Sundays.  Like Ahab, they know one or two prophets, but they hate them because they only say unkind things.  Their whimpering grow tiresome, and such persons will, I hope, not imagine this piece to be any justification of their obsessions.

But beyond gospel offense, proper offending, and the perpetually offended, there is such a thing as offensiveness.  If I treat my brother as a fool because we differ on a point of ecclesiology or eschatology, I am offensive.  If I find myself acting dismissive and superior whenever I have a disagreement, I am offensive.  If I cannot oppose error without puffing myself up, I am offensive.  If I treat hangnails with amputations…but you get the point.  Sometimes men are simply offensive, and when they are, they deserve the scorn which they receive.

Only of course, when a preacher is offensive – not when he gives gospel offense or offends the deserving or the easily offended – but when he is truly offensive, it isn’t just he who is scorned.  The unbeliever will scorn Christ, while even the Christian may scorn the preaching of the Word, which is almost as bad. 

Now it would be so easy to apply this to the mega-pastors of the world; after all one of them gave rise to this set of observations.  If Carl Trueman were writing this essay, that is the application he would make.  He would write incisively and wittily, and his conclusions would be entirely correct.  I, however, have taken it in another direction.  As I look back on the conference I have begun to ask, “How often do I preach to persons who are sitting not under but over the preaching, and how often is it my fault?”

To this degree, then, I was blessed by my preening brother in the pulpit this week.  He has made me reflect on my preaching, on my conversation, and even on my participation online.  The preacher must give gospel offense.  Sometimes his work involves offending those who deserve it.  He really doesn’t need to concern himself when he bothers the chronically offended.  But when he is truly offensive, he may undo much of his best work.  I have little doubt that I have done all four at one point or another in my ministry.  Perhaps the next time I am about to be offensive I will have a reason to pause and consider.  After all, even less good is likely to come from my offensiveness.  I am not a mega-pastor, no one is paying attention to my ministry, and so there is little benefit if I become another negative example to the shepherds of Christ’s flock.  And anyway, don’t we have enough of those already?

You Can’t Put a River in a Box, Either!

You can’t put a river in a box.  Rivers are enormous, powerful and vibrant.  They can never be entirely and unfailingly contained.

Oh, engineers try.  They examine watercourses, take hydrological samples, and chart meteorological history.  They build dams and levees, but in post-Katrina America we all know that even the strongest levee may fail.

That Sly Fox!

When a major river floods it decimates an entire region, but even minor rivers sometimes escape the box.  A few years back some of our local bridges over the Fox River were impassible and many down-town businesses were closed due to flooding.

So you can’t really contain a river, try though you might.  We can, however, predict the behavior of rivers with a fair degree of certainty.  When you cross a river, you may see a sign indicating its name.  This implies that the river will be found in that location on an ordinary day.  Flood-plains can be mapped, and wise builders account for them.  A river cannot be put in in a box, but it usually flows within its banks.

Now many will by this time think they know where I’m headed with this, and a few are ready to pounce.  “God is not like a river!” they will insist.  “God is bigger than a river!”

True, but a river is very much like the truth.  Both the river and the truth are creations of God.  Both are given by God for the benefit of man.  Both are stronger than man, but are governed by God’s sovereign will.  Both flow wherever He wishes, and both are subject to His restraint, even if no man could ever restrain them.

Further, the truth, like a river, tends to run in certain courses.  It acts one way near the headwaters, another passing through the rapids of the mountains, and yet another as it nears the mouth.  Certainly this is what the writer to the Hebrews was getting at in the opening to his epistle.  The truth, like a river, tends to run in its ordinary banks – something Christians once called “the means of grace.”  Just as a river is usually found in its bed, so the truth is usually found in the reading and preaching of the Word, in prayer, and in the sacraments.

God has sometimes seen fit to send floods upon the earth, and at other times he has chosen to flood the earth with revelation.  This is why, after centuries of near silence, God’s truth burst on the scene with fire and smoke and a multitude of miracles during the days of Moses.  It is why after a similarly quiet period John, Jesus Himself, and the Apostles suddenly issued a new torrent of truth upon the earth, accompanied by similar miraculous signs.

Yet through most of history, even before the completion of Scripture, life for God’s people was not a perpetual tent-meeting.  Flood-stage is not common, but exceptional.  To recognize this is not to put God in a box; it is rather to sense that God normally acts in normal ways, and that since He is God we really ought to assume that He has good reasons.

Perhaps this weekend I will take my boys for a walk by the river.  If so, I’ll take them to the riverside park.  I expect to find the river there, not running down the center of Main Street.  Am I putting God in a box?  Could He not send the river through my kitchen?  Of course I know that He could, but what sort of a fool would I be to expect it of Him?  No, you wouldn’t accuse me of having too small a god if I drove to the river in order to see the river.

So why is it that when I say, “If I want to know the truth of God, I ought to open a Bible,” so many are quick to accuse me of putting God in a box?

Normal Is Good.

A Themesong for Hilary

I’m worried for our former Secretary of State.  She hasn’t seemed like herself of late, and I’m

WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE?

afraid she’s about to get an unwanted degree of attention.  To help her through this difficult time, I’ve written her a theme song.  It’s set to the tune of Hank Williams Jr.’s “Family Tradition.”  I have no objection to her using it in any and all future hearings.  I might know some people who can sing backups and do the instrumentals for her.

Don’t ask, “Hilary
Why do you lie?
Why do you perjure yourself?
Why must you stick to that story you made up?”
If I’m down on Capitol Hill
Some ol’ Repubs tryin to give me corrections
I’ll say, “Leave me alone;
I’m lying all day long -
It’s a family tradition!”

Thanks for indulging me, and as always – I promise not to do politics too often on this blog.

Will the Real Pharisee Please Stand Up!

So, what exactly is a Pharisee, anyway?  Every Christian has some idea; in fact it has become the Christian version of “Nazi” – you win any argument by being the first to call the other guy a Pharisee.  But do many Christians know what a Pharisee is?

There are a number of passages in the Gospels which speak of the Pharisees, but one brief interaction summarizes the major elements of their theology and practice.  It is found in Matthew 15:

¹ Then Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said, ² “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat.” ³ He answered them, “And why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? ⁴ For God commanded, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.’ ⁵ But you say, ‘If anyone tells his father or his mother, “What you would have gained from me is given to God,” ⁶ he need not honor his father.’ So for the sake of your tradition you have made void the wordof God. ⁷ You hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, when he said:

⁸ “‘This people honors me with their lips,
but their heart is far from me;
⁹ in vain do they worship me,
teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’”

And what do we learn about the Pharisees from this?

The first element of Phariseeism is clearly implied, and Jesus makes it even more clear elsewhere: Pharisees were moralists.  That doesn’t just mean that they believed in morality; if that were so, every member of every religion ever would be a Pharisee.  Rather it means that they saw personal morality as the path to redemption.  It is why they became so adept at popping up in every situation to point out perceived sins.  Only a moralist could be concerned with whether or not Jesus’ disciples washed their hands.  This central element of their theology is what Jesus had in mind when He told the parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector.  The one saw that righteousness was unobtainable and relied on the mercy of God.  But the other – the Pharisee – thought his own moral character was enough for him to draw near to God.

The second and closely related element of the Pharisaical theology is explicit in this passage: Pharisees were legalists.  This means that they multiplied legal regulations never found in Scripture.  The law detailed ceremonial washings for various occasions, but dinner was not one of them.  They did not even pretend that the issue is biblical, asking instead why the disciples broke “the tradition of the elders.”  The elevation of human tradition – what Isaiah called “the commandments of men” – to the level of God’s law is legalism.  It is not surprising that those who see personal morality as necessary to salvation would soon multiply the regulations of the law.

But the third element of Pharisaical theology is unexpected: The Pharisees were antinomians.  That seems impossible, but look at what Jesus asked: “Why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition?”  He then offered up one commandment out of the Ten and demonstrated that the Pharisees habitually broke it.  They talked a great game on the law, but when it came to actual moral commands which God expected them to follow they managed to re-write the law.  Their tradition bound both them and others to a set of extra-biblical regulations, while at the same time exempting them from the laws of God.

So that is what a Pharisee really is: a moralistic, legalistic antinomian.  Too many in our lawless age assume that this is oxymoronic, that legalism and antinomianism are and must be opposites.  This is simply untrue.  Legalism and antinomianism are instead the twin children of moralism.  Here is how it works.  Say you want to get to heaven on the basis of your own morality; you’ll find pretty quickly that the commandments of God are very difficult to keep.  This is especially true once you encounter Jesus’ teaching on the meaning of the law.  Remember how the Rich Young Ruler had his pretentions to morality smashed?  After claiming to be a law-keeper, he heard the truth from Jesus, and he went away sad.  Read through Matthew 5 closely and you’re likely to have your own sad moment as Jesus explains the deep spiritual application of the law.  Moralism cannot coexist with the moral law of God; the depravity of man won’t allow it.  The moralist, then, is forced to do two things: he must abandon the actual laws of God which genuinely apply to him, and at the same time he must concoct some new, easier set of rules which can be followed.   That is what the Pharisees did, and it is what modern-day Pharisees must continue to do.

So what would we expect a real, modern-day Pharisee to look like?

Well, in the first place, he would say or at least imply that true Christianity can be judged entirely by actions rather than by beliefs.  He might, for instance, suggest that until Christians look and act exactly like Christ they are not really Christians.  Of course Christians are supposed to act like Christ; that is the essence of Christian morality.  Remember: believing in morality is not moralism, but if we understand what Christ-like-ness really is, we won’t expect Christians to actually attain to it perfectly.  The Pharisee, however, will, because he is a moralist.  Meanwhile, in keeping with his deeds-not-creeds philosophy, he will downplay the significance of all doctrinal disputes.

Furthermore, the modern-day Pharisee can be expected to discount the law of God.  True Pharisees will object to the most obvious commands.  Perhaps, for instance, they will conclude that the Bible’s teaching on sexuality isn’t all that important and that Christians shouldn’t make too big of a deal about it.  That would fit in perfectly with a philosophy which was arguing 2000 years ago that the Bible’s teaching on honoring your parents wasn’t all that important and that God’s people shouldn’t make too big of a deal about it.

Finally, having jettisoned the morality of the Bible, the modern-day Pharisee will doubtless invent a whole new set of rules and regulations for Christians to follow.  Maybe he’ll say that Christians need to do more service outside the church than in, even though that’s pretty much the opposite of what Paul taught in I Timothy.  Or maybe he’ll argue that Christians need to eat lots of meals with Muslims and Buddhists, which of course is nowhere to be found in the Bible anyway.  What would recommend commandments like these, though, is that they’re pretty easily followed, at least as compared to the thorough, heart-mind-and-soul morality demanded by our Lord.  Remember, if you’re going to be a moralist, you have to pick a law which you are capable of following!

That is at least a biblical picture of what a modern-day Pharisee might look like.  Thank goodness we don’t actually have anyone like that in the church today!

Systemic, Cultural Sins

Here’s a useful hypothetical:

Imagine a company – MedTech Incorporated (MTI) – which specializes in cutting edge medical research.  For the sake of our argument, we will posit three things about this company.

First, the leadership structure of MTI is predominantly Christian.  The major share-holders are orthodox Christians, as are the company executives and a considerable number of the employees.  Board meetings open in prayer, and every division has its Bible studies and its prayer groups.  MTI’s leadership is made up of moral citizens and solid churchmen.  Nothing about their religion is objectionable; in fact, a considerable number of them are reliably reformed.

Second, MTI is a great success story.  Shareholders have been paid huge dividends.  Along the way they have been champions of great humanitarian causes.  Their research has particularly benefited children; childhood leukemia has been virtually wiped out because of their research.  As a Christian company, they have given glory to God for every medical advance to which they have contributed.

Third, though, the research which has been the foundation of MTI’s success utilizes embryonic stem cells obtained from aborted infants.  MTI CEO David Jefferson, a member in good standing of a conservative, confessional Presbyterian church, has issued a statement on abortion: “As a Christian company, MTI opposes abortion as a clear violation of the laws of God.  MTI has lobbied to end abortion, and we look forward to the day when it is outlawed throughout America.”  However, in the early days of the company, the Research & Procurement Division acquired the stem cell lines currently used in MTI research by purchasing embryonic remains from abortion providers.  World Magazine ran a story suggesting that MTI was being inconsistent.  They were granted an interview with Dabney L. Roberts, head of MTI’s Medical Ethics Council and a graduate of the Southern Baptist Seminary.  Said Roberts, “We live in an imperfect world.  Obviously we wish that these stem cells didn’t exist, but they do.  MTI is not involved in abortion in any way, but since abortion exists, we find it consistent with biblical morality to pursue medical advancements using whatever resources are available to us.”

We’re all fine with that, right?  These guys are a great example to us all of how a Christian worldview can be advanced in the modern business climate.  We should wish that more Christians practiced their faith so openly!  In the event that America came to her senses and outlawed abortion, but that in so doing the government broke up MTI’s resources and forced it into bankruptcy, we would all pine for the good old days when a truly Christian company had been salt and light in the American corporate scene, wouldn’t we?  Can I at least get an “Amen!” from the paleo-Confederates among us?

I imagine that most of my readers see through the blatant sophistry here.  It is impossible to sanitize embryonic stem cell research by separating it from the abortion industry which produces the cells.  If anyone builds a financial empire on those cells, he is inextricably mired in the moral slough which is abortion.  To claim to be against abortion while profiting from it is inane.  It matters not how sound a man’s theology is or how good a citizen he is in any other way; to be so deeply involved in the traffic of abortion is to surrender moral credibility.  Who among us would defend such men by saying, “They have thought long and hard about this issue; they are deeper thinkers than we.”  Sophistry is sophistry, and when it is applied to the process of self-justification in the midst of obvious sin it is called “casuistry.”  It is not to be admired.

Yet this is exactly what the more thoughtful defenders of Southern slavery once did, and to my amazement they have recently been praised for the subtlety of their thought.  Forced to acknowledge that by biblical standards the African slave trade was an abomination, Southern apologists eventually agreed with the abolition of the slave trade but continued to profit from a financial empire built on that trade.  Their justification collapses because of the impossibility of separating the slave trade from slavery.

Imagine that my grandparents had kidnapped your grandparents and imposed slavery on them.  Imagine that today this is an undisputed historic fact; we both agree that this is what happened.  Perhaps we also agree that unjust enslavement is an abomination before God.  How might you respond if I said, “Kidnapping is wrong, but I never kidnapped anyone, and I have a legal and moral right to maintain you in perpetual bondage.  I’ve done nothing wrong, and I should not be deprived of my property!”

Such risible, facile reasoning is required of anyone who wishes to extol the virtues of the Southern slaveholding class while agreeing that the slave trade was an abomination.  It simply won’t do.

I understand that the theology and – in some particulars – the civic morality of the Antebellum South is admirable.  I understand that the Southern defense of state sovereignty against federal encroachment was constitutionally correct and that it seems to provide a template for responding to many political woes of our day.  I understand that the Southern warriors demonstrated a winsome blend of courage and faith.

I also understand how tempting it can be to paper over the moral deficiencies of men who in so many ways were morally and intellectually superior to our own political leaders.  But American white conservatives must come to grips with the historic fact that slavery polluted and corrupted much of what was good in America’s early years.  In particular, we ought to acknowledge that those Southerners who actively defended the idea and institution of slavery surrendered their moral credibility.

Large, systemic, cultural sins corrupt everything around them.  They undermine virtue and lead to the ultimate downfall of the cultures which embrace them.  It is for exactly this reason that we oppose abortion, homosexuality, and all other manifestations of our pornographic culture.  As we do so, we must not pretend that our ancestors had no large, systemic, cultural sins of their own.  Slavery was just such a sin, and many of the national legends we admire were spattered by its guilt.