John MacArthur says Grace Community Church will not obey California's ban on indoor worship services. To that, I say, good job. There is only one problem.
Having taken this long to stand up to the overbearing, unconstitional, and immoral commands of California, it's going to be that much harder to argue in court that now it's an undue burden when four months ago it wasn't. Having capitulated to the state before, it will be that much more difficult to take back the ground you previously surrendered, and the state most certainly will use your previous capitulation against you now.
It's almost like there's a reason one should always resist tyranny, even over so-called "trivial" issues.
Wow, Phil's recent post didn't age well, did it?
ReplyDeleteSorry, but I still don't think it tyrannical for the government to restrict indoor occupancy during a pandemic. In fact, I consider Christians who bridle against such restrictions bad citizens. Being an American carries with it some amount of reasonable responsibility to sacrifice for the good of the entire community.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, the Supreme Court just denied an appeal by a Nevada church decrying the unfairness of restrictions in that state, where bars, casinos, and movie theaters are allowed to operate at 50% capacity whereas churches are relegated to 50 attendees total, no matter how large their sanctuary. Clearly, an unconstitutional ruling. Perhaps THEY should defy the order and permit 50% occupancy. Rules should be rules across the board.
I'm pretty sure government has closed down churches during times of plague in the past. The inability to distinguish between these and labeling this "tyrany" seems a bit much.
DeleteThat said, I think the difference now is that several of the governors are drunk on power and enjoying shutting things down.
And there is an essential difference when government is making neutral rules that are applied to all public gatherings.
I'm using the classical definition of "tyranny" which means "rule by one without legal right." In the United States, the Constitution is our legal authority and the law is king, not any man.
DeleteThere are also at least two different questions in play: 1) SHOULD a church have physical attendees during a pandemic? 2) Should the GOVERNMENT be permitted to force an answer to question 1 upon us? I can answer "No" to both and there is no contradiction.
I think the big-box model churches should be thankful for these governmental edicts and orders. It's almost certainly winnowing the wheat and tares. It's good for the sheep when the goats wander away and don't return to the fold.
DeleteI'm pretty confident this is going on currently based on anecdotal observations. A purer bride is a good thing. If the big-box model churches need to pare down their facilities and such, that's ok too, more money for missions and outreach.
Consumer Christianity is suffering from these arbitrary rules, not robust Acts 2 Biblical Christianity.
How about a ban on public protests where people are gathered in tens of thousands, many close together and not wearing face masks?
ReplyDeleteThe governmental hypocrisy is definitely something to look at as well. However, as I pointed out in the original post, the issue here is that the fact that John MacArthur did not resist from the beginning is going to be used against him now. And from a standpoint of logical consistency, there's nothing different between now and March that would justify Grace Community Church NOW disobeying the unconstitutional dictates of Newsome when they obeyed them in March. That WILL be used against them when this (inevitably) goes to court.
DeleteAlongside that is the fact that freedom, once lost, will rarely ever be regained, and if it is regained it will be at great cost. The fact that the vast majority of American are fine with their Constitutional rights being trampled makes it quite clear that our country probably won't last another fifty years. I've read too much history to be optimistic. The fall of the US is coming, so everyone best prepare for it.
Peter--
ReplyDeleteI tend to agree with you that an ever-increasing boil-the-frog tyranny is on the way. But we're not going to stave off the bullies by appearing petulant and uncaring during a pandemic. MLK was smart enough to engineer situations in which the ruling whites looked like the bad guys. We must do the same here. We must handpick our protests to make the other side look intolerant. Shouldn't be too hard to do. Wait for it...and pounce!
Hello Eric. I do not disagree with your point, but I believe that this IS the smart place and time where we need to engage. And that is borne out by the (state) government's responses to the BLM protests. It is plain to all that COVID does not distinguish between a Church and a BLM protest, so why are there the different rules in place? If you're not going to press against the government overreach at this point, then I must conclude there is no point at which you will do so.
DeleteThis echoes back to my original point too. The problem that GCC is going to run into is the fact that they did NOT object in March to the exact same unconstitional decrees that they are objecting to now. This means that in the court of public opinion (as well as most likely in the court of law), there is no justification for them to complain about it now.
I, on the other hand, have consistently argued that the government does not have a right to jettison the First Amendment and interfere with religion OR public peaceable assembly. Now the government has proven by their actions that they are inconsistent in cracking down on religion while letting BLM rioters run wild without objection. What this means is that because *I* have remained consistent, I can point to the inconsistencies of the government without being subject to any counterclaims of my own hypocrisy here.
GCC cannot do the same, for GCC themselves have changed their position between March and now, just as the government has. When they point out the government hypocrisy, they *WILL* be met with counter-claims of their own hypocrisy. Again, since I have remained consistent arguing against the governmental overreach, that is not a problem *I* am met with.
I would also add that my argument has consistently been that the GOVERNMENT has no right to limit church attendance. But that doesn't mean churches themselves shouldn't limit it. I believe any church should take the appropriate measures of their own accord. Sure there are those who have tried to put words in my mouth (as has happened in some social media debates I've had on this topic). My only responsibility when that happens is to reiterate that those who put words in my mouth are lying, and that I hold that churches morally and logically should limit their congregations based on objective research, but that the government has no right to control church behavior.
DeleteBut I freely admit that I don't care about optics. But that's more because I know the people who lie and distort will do so regardless of what's going on. Therefore, NOW is the time to speak up for truth. There never will be this mythical time when it would be better to argue for the truth because the distorters will be less evil than they already are.
To Peter and Coram Deo, this thread is just gaslighting. Im weary of your constant harping and complaining.
ReplyDeleteCoreysan, you're simply misreading me. I'm not gaslighting, harping, or complaining. I'm simply making observations. John Stott once said, "History is not a random series of meaningless events. It is rather a succession of periods and happenings which are under the sovereign rule of God, Who is the God of history."
DeleteI happen to agree wholeheartedly with this statement, therefore I can draw some related conclusions:
i.) The Lord is using all things (good, evil, seemingly indifferent) to accomplish His purposes. This includes the actions of earthly rulers and authorities, and it includes global pandemics.
ii.) The Lord is moving history towards a final consummation. The future is not in doubt. As believers in the Lord Jesus Christ we can rest secure knowing the world is not spiraling out of control, but is being brought to its proper ending, at the proper time, by our sovereign God.
Part of this process currently appears to be a winnowing of those who associate with the visible church, for whatever reason. This too is no surprise because the Scriptures teach that judgment begins with the house of God. It's good when God brings affliction and trials and tribulations, although they may not be pleasurable, they bring forth the fruit of righteousness.
As the old hymn says:
"Though through fiery trials thy pathway may lie, my grace all sufficient shall be thy supply.
The flame shall not hurt thee,I only design thy dross to consume and thy gold to refine."
Coreysan,
DeleteThat's quite the accusation. Care to back it up? Gaslighting has a definition: "to manipulate (someone) by psychological means into questioning their own sanity." Clearly there is no point in any of this where I'm attempting to get anyone to question their own sanity, and I doubt Coram Deo is either.
It is actually possible to disagree with other people without trying to harm them psychologically. People used to know this.
Furthermore, the accusation of "constant harping" is laughable. I've written two posts on the topic, one on July 10 and the other on July 24. That's it, other than potentially mentioning something in some comments back when Steve brought it up in March (I don't recall each post I comment on so can't say for sure). To mention something twice with a gap of 14 days between the mentions seems to be an odd definition of "constant harping" if you ask me.
DeleteI am concerned that you are saying this wearies you, though. It doesn't seem to me like anything I've said thus far should provoke such a response in anyone, but of course I would not imply by that that you do not know your own state of mind. Can you tell me why anything that I said caused you to feel wearied? It seem to me to be a rather strange response, and I'm genuinely curious as to how it came about.
Those of you citing "What the government did in the past..." when it came to restrictions put upon churches are failing to realize the massive secular shift in our culture and government. We're not playing in that sand box anymore. This generation doesn't care about the church, they see little need for it.
ReplyDeleteOn a related note:
ReplyDelete"This is a simple case. Under the Governor’s edict, a 10-screen 'multiplex' may host 500 moviegoers at any time. A casino, too, may cater to hundreds at once, with perhaps six people huddled at each craps table here and a similar number gathered around every roulette wheel there. Large numbers and close quarters are fine in such places. But churches, synagogues, and mosques are banned from admitting more than 50 worshippers—no matter how large the building, how distant the individuals, how many wear face masks, no matter the precautions at all. In Nevada, it seems, it is better to be in entertainment than religion. Maybe that is nothing new. But the First Amendment prohibits such obvious discrimination against the exercise of religion. The world we inhabit today, with a pandemic upon us, poses unusual challenges. But there is no world in which the Constitution permits Nevada to favor Caesars Palace over Calvary Chapel." (Source)
Here's a possible solution. ;)
I think a pastor could have said, "Okay, I'll close my church to in-person meetings greater than n for six weeks" or some such number, and then said, "Enough is enough." The pastor could even have said that he was doing that out of prudence but that the longer it continued the more of a problem there is for whether or not one is obeying the biblical command not to forsake assembling together. After all, churches don't meet every day of the week, so there is obviously some flexibility in what it takes to obey that command.
ReplyDeleteI don't so much see this being used against Macarthur *because* he went along with it for a temporary period, but right from the beginning there always needed to be two things asserted: 1) The church has to obey God rather than men. 2) This is very strictly temporary and limited, because meeting in person is essential to the church's existence as an ecclesia. It needn't be meeting in ginormous-sized groups, but assembling, yes. And Christians have died for the privilege of doing that, and we need to keep defending that.
I don't know what MacArthur said earlier, but his defiance now seems to make it pretty clear that he had some such limits in mind all along.
By the way, for background about MacArthur's earlier position, you might be interested to see here and here.
DeleteYes, I see what you mean. And interesting to see Phil Johnson dialoguing (to put it nicely :-)) with Steve in the comments on that old thread and to see that Phil is very (rightly) strongly anti-lockdown now.
DeleteQuite honestly, I've seen it among my own friends, acquaintance, FB friends, etc.: People have changed their minds on these things without really realizing that they've changed their minds. It looks to me like Phil Johnson and maybe John MacArthur may have changed their minds. I myself prefer to *recognize* when I've changed my mind, but I've been learning esp. during Covid how often people do change without realizing it.
The only way they could try to say that they haven't changed their minds would be if they said that they were operating under some principle like this: "When an order from the government infringes only in a very limited, temporary way on our religious freedom and stems from a legitimate concern, we'll comply with it as a Romans 13 matter for that limited, temporary period in the name of submitting to every ordinance for the Lord's sake. But outside of that we'll defy it." Now, maybe they tacitly had that kind of principle in mind from the outset, but if so, it would have been preferable if they had said so, maybe even in response to Steve's challenge: Look, Steve, you're right that this could get to be a serious issue, and we are not going to comply with this for an indefinite time period, but we're willing to do it for a few weeks.
I also understand the frustration with the question, "Are you complying with this because it's a genuinely good prudential move or because it's mandated by the state?" Probably the smartest way for them to try to defend their original decision would have been to say, "It's both." And maybe even to add that if the state had made such a mandate for *no good reason at all*, not even the appearance of one, they would have refused, or that if, on the other hand, it had been left up to them, they would have made a different prudential decision (as you guys rightly pointed out, they *were* planning to meet), but that the combo of the two was enough for them to decide to comply for a limited time.
I'm not even saying I'm defending that. I'm getting way more to be of your mind as time goes on--that it was necessary for the church to assert its rights from the beginning. But it could have been at least a logically coherent position to take.
Thanks, Lydia! :) Very good points with which I think I could have agreed or at the very least sympathized with if that's how they had initially put it. I mean what you say is intelligently nuanced and considered, but I suspect more so than perhaps they ever had in mind, but maybe the fault is mine and I ought to learn to be as generous and gracious as you are.
DeleteIt's a tall order to ask a church, particularly a large church, or particularly a large church with many elderly folks attending, to engage in civil disobedience from the word, "Go." For one thing, there will be differences of opinion among members about the severity of the virus. For another, asking people to put their reputations on the line and risk jail or fines is a big ask. MacArthur and co. made a very reasonable call. By waiting 4 or 5 months, they complied not only with Romans 13 but with Jesus' instruction to walk 2 miles when asked to go one.
DeleteHello Ben,
DeleteWhile the points you raise seem reasonable, they unfortunately treat it like a church either has to submit to protect the congregation OR not submit and put their congregation at risk. That's not what I'm arguing for, however. You can engage in civil disobedience while still taking measures to protect your congregation from the virus. For one thing, simply having your doors open does NOT mean that every single congregant has to show up. You can say, "While we're going to have our doors open, every person who is at high risk should stay home and watch our livestream."
Another issue is that the argument you made here is NOT the argument that GCC made back in March. Steve pointed out the problems with the stated reason for GCC to submit to the unconstitutional decrees back in March. While it's fine for YOU to make that argument now, GCC is not being consistent if they want to use that now. That said, better for them to be inconsistent and pick the right decision than to remain consistent in error.
Yeah, I was frustrated with 9Marks talk about "binding consciences." I mean...c'mon. I'd be very surprised if GCC is saying, "You have to come on Sunday or you're a sinner."
DeleteHe literally talked about the government stopping churches from "binding the consciences" of their congregants. I think that's very dangerous. Nobody is being hypnotized here. People can decide not to come even if the church is open. It's inviting tyranny to say that the government is acting legitimately by shutting down a church service precisely because that might "bind the conscience" of the members and make them feel obligated to attend. If anything, that makes the church even *more* "dangerous" than a mere bar or dance club. After all, nobody is going to feel that his conscience has been "bound" to visit one of those! So I guess by that measure government should be even quicker to shut down the churches!