I Would Leave Your Church
On September 11, 2009 in Minneapolis, MN, the Religious Newswriters Association held a meeting, which featured a Q&A panel for reporters. The topic was: The New Calvinists. The panel consisted of three members: Collin Hansen, John Piper, and Carolyn James. Each panelist made a 15-minute opening statement and then the floor was opened for the various reporters from local and national news entities to pose questions to them about the New Calvinist movement.
Special Annual Issue
This topic has enjoyed a broader interest since Time magazine mentioned it earlier in the year. The special March 23, 2009 issue featured a cover story entitled: 10 Ideas Changing the World Right Now. The New Calvinism ranked third among the ten ideas listed.
- Jobs are the New Assets
- Recycling the Suburbs
- The New Calvinism
- Reinstating the Interstate
- Amortality
- Africa, Business Destination
- The Rent-a-Country
- Biobanks
- Survival Stores
- Ecological Intelligence
Time magazine brought this movement to the attention of a more secular audience and has piqued their interest. 2009 has proven to be a year of intense discussion about religion in America, but it is unclear what fruit will be produced from it. Now, let’s turn our attention back to the meeting in Minneapolis.
A Question of Offense
During the open floor, reporter Cathy Grossman from USA Today addressed a question to John Piper about his opening statement. Piper led his opening statement with how his calvinism deals with the tragedy of 9/11. In summary, the question on September 12th was: Where was God? He responded that God was not helpless nor unable to stop it, but was in charge and in control. He then mentioned what he would say eight years later to children who had lost parents then. He would still tell them God was sovereign over that moment and that same sovereign God, Who is wise and good, will help them in the hard life they have been given. To this Ms. Grossman asked:
If you could please go back to your opening comments about what you would tell the children who lost their parents, because I must have misunderstood you . . . If I lost a spouse and I took my child to your church and I heard you say those things, I would take my child out and never come back. So, clearly I misunderstood.
Though he would go on to say more, Piper immediately responded:
Not necessarily.
Before we go any further, let’s deal with the disclaimers. I am not naive enough to think that I can comprehend everything Ms. Grossman was thinking or feeling from her few brief comments and question. I don’t know all her motivation. This post is not to criticize her and really is not about her. Neither is this post about the theological and practical problem of reconciling the sovereignty of God and the reality of evil and suffering in the world. To that I will simply commend John Piper’s statements as right in a very brief setting.
What is this post about? I want to take the brief exchange quoted above as an opportunity to generalize about very real attitudes and reactions people have to offensive truths.
Offensive Truth
The Bible is a book of absolute truth and absolute truth is a hard rock that busts realities, ideas, thoughts, philosophies, knowledge, teachings, etc. into two categories: true and false, i.e. true and not-true. Absolute truth is always exclusive and therefore offensive to those whose “truth” is excluded.
As long as a church is believing, preaching, teaching, and practicing the Bible, there will be many points where people are offended. The relativism that permeates the worldviews of many demands that offended sensibilities trump truth. In other words, if your truth claim offends me, it is not true, or at the very least you should not speak it. Many come into church services prepared to make for the aft exit as soon as their delicate offense reactors are tripped.
In the face of threatened departure, some trim and soften their message to at least minimize the potential offensiveness. We should speak the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15). We should be gentle and patient while instructing in meekness (2 Timothy 2:24-25). But we should never compromise or hold back the truth to protect the hypersensitive feelings of the crowd.
The truth is: If Jesus Himself were there teaching and preaching, many would take offense and leave. This is no new phenomenon. After Jesus had taught some hard truths, He saw many leave.
From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him.
~ John 6:66
Did Jesus trim or soften His message? Did He re-think the way He was “doing church”? No. He turned to the twelve and simply asked, “Will ye also go away?” (John 6:67).
We certainly don’t want to offend unnecessarily, but neither can we avoid offending if that means compromising or concealing the truth. When we are faced with, “I would leave your church,” may we remain courageous and faithful and pray for those who so oppose themselves.
The Fruits of Unfaithful Attendance
Excerpt from a message preached in Home Baptist Church Annual Bible Conference in Mt. Morris, MI on April 22, 2009.
A pattern of hit and miss attendance at church over a long period of time will yield unpleasant fruit. A few of those effects are:
- It grieves and discourages the pastor whom God has given you in His grace (Hebrews 13:17)
- It grieves and discourages the body whom God has joined you to in His grace (Colossians 3:16)
- It leads to worldliness and sin in a person’s life because you are neglecting or rejecting an ordained instrument of sanctification in your life (Ephesians 4:11-13)
- It establishes a pattern of unfaithfulness for future generations that gets worse and not better in our descendants (Psalms 145:4)
- It damages your witness and testimony for Christ in the world (Matthew 5:16)
- It leads to unregenerate members in the body who must be purged out (1 Corinthians 5:7)
- It leads to the death of a particular local church (Revelations 2:5)
Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.
~ Hebrews 10:25
Ad Hominem
This is an argumentative device in debate, and, I should add, an improper device at that. Ad Hominem is a Latin phrase that literally means, to the person. It refers to two different fallacies in argument:
- Making an appeal to emotion or prejudice rather than to logic or rational thought
- Attacking a person’s character rather than the substance of their argument
This is a favorite device of many politicians who play to emotions when pitching their plans rather than expounding the merits of their proposals. They also use ad hominem to discredit their opponents rather than rationally debate the merits of their opponents’ plans.
I will forego giving examples of ad hominem arguments in order to give time and space to our purpose in considering it: What concern should Christians have for ad hominem arguments, besides being careful not to use such a device? Note also that in this post I want to restrict the consideration to the second definition given above, though many good applications could also be made from the first.
Though personal attacks are technically out of bounds in good debate, evil men break rules (the law) because they are evil. It should not surprise us when the world does precisely that rather than answer the arguments we make for the truth of God’s Word. This is what Jesus faced when the people asked, “Is not this the carpenter’s son? Is not his mother called Mary? And his brethren, James, and Joses, and Simon, and Judas? And his sisters, are they not all with us? Whence then hath this man all these things?” (Matthew 13:55-56). The disciples were likewise despised because they were fishermen from Galilee. We can be sure to be despised and attacked personally over something in our life, e.g. birthplace, nationality, education, lack of education, physical impediments, etc.
We can do nothing about many of our physical attributes for which we may be despised. Though it is bad form to attack one’s person and it may be inconsequential to the subject at hand, it may also be perfectly true that we are short, fat, bald, or whatever and we will have to bear all such reproaches patiently.
Additionally, the ad hominem response may take the form of accusations against us of wrongdoing. Say that a certain man is ably and eloquently setting forth the doctrines of grace to a group of people. And then, someone in the corner yells, “Yeah, God may be sovereign but you’re an adulterer.” You know as well as I do, if that accusation is true, everything the man has said is lost and the party is over. I realize that if he was speaking the truth, the fact he was an adulterer does not alter the truth he spoke and I will try to deal with that aspect in another post where I consider ad hominem in evaluation of an argument and its impact on a Christian.
What is our response to be to this sort of ad hominem? There are two things primarily that we must consider in this regard. First, we must ensure that the accusation is not true. In other words, we must ever seek to have a conscience void of offense toward God and man (Acts 24:16). Actually, through a godly life we will give weight to our words and put to silence our detractors (1 Peter 2:12, 15; Titus 2:7-8). Secondly, we should rejoice. That’s right, when we are falsely accused, we should rejoice, “Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you” (Matthew 5:11-12).
