Faith Press

We have received some interesting comments over the years, some supportive and some a lot less than supportive. I would place the following comment in the latter category. The thing about this particular comment is that it is so full of half-truths, misunderstandings, lies, and idiocy that I thought it might be instructive to interact with the author. Sadly, he did not include his name, but I’m willing to continue the discussion even if it is with an anonymous critic.

I found a link to this sermon off a blog on the internet and it piqued my interest.  It didn’t take me very long to realize that Pastor Bacon was proof-texting scripture to fit his world view instead of taking the Bible as a whole.  By the end of the “sermon” I realized that Pastor Bacon is more focused on expounding on his radical political views than teaching us how to live as Christ.  His “Smith and Wesson will protect me, since we can’t count on the police” was interesting…why not trust in God, as did missionaries of the past going into dangerous lands.  He says we WILL NOT be a slave to any man, yet declares we are under “Yankee occupation” since the Civil War.  It was fine in his mind then for Africans to be a slave to man. He correctly says that the government cannot infringe on our religious freedoms, but then makes it clear that is only for people who are Christians.  He and his type would fit right in with the Sharia law that they claim to despise.  He incites Christians to be militant against the very authorities he claims that God ordained.  By the end he was beginning to sound like a domestic terrorist and frankly gave me the creeps.  I would admonish Christians to read their Bibles and see what Jesus said was to be our response to a less than perfect government.

First, let me say that I was glad the critic found the link and also glad that he followed it. I am not at all surprised to learn that he disagrees with my exposition of the passage under question (Romans 13:1-7). The fact is, however, that my exposition is quite in keeping with the historical reformed interpretation of the passage. It was interesting to me that the critic referred to me as “proof-texting” Scripture. That complaint usually comes from people who do not have any proof texts of their own, and I was amused but not surprised at the absolute absence of Scripture of any kind in the critic’s comments. Nevertheless, I will give the devil his due. The exposition of Romans 13 that I set forth, while it was standard at the beginning of our country, has fallen victim to quietistic and irrelevant Christianity that would much rather sit around and sing “kumbaya” while the nation and its institutions go to blazes. The first and great commandment among such people is “Keep your Jesus at church.”

Of course the commentator is correct when he says that I had and continue to have an agenda. My agenda, quite simply, is removing fallacious interpretations of Scripture from people such as he is. However, I will suggest that I am precisely and carefully interested in teaching folks, including the critic, how to live as Christ. That would be the Christ who turned over the tables of the money changers while wielding a whip against them. It would be the Christ who told his disciples to sell their coats and buy a sword. It would be the Christ who in the Old Testament was called a “man of war” and in the New Testament is characterized as one who had a bow, and a crown, and went forth conquering to overcome.” I rather suspect that this is a Jesus that the commentator knows little about and much less how to live as he did.

The fact that most if not all of the preachers who went west to preach the gospel in earlier days did so “packing’” is so well-known as to be beyond dispute except to someone who has heard little history of the actual westward movement. I find it interesting as well that my critic thinks that God has to protect him without the use of a sword or without the use of a handgun. I am pretty sure he does not depend upon food dropping out of the sky. I hope he has work and is actually being of some use to people for a living and not simply receiving a stipend from the government tax-coffers. So, to suggest that one is not trusting God if he works for a paycheck is as arbitrary as to suggest that someone is not trusting God if he makes use of weaponry to protect his family. The fact is, if one does not provide for his own family he has denied the faith and is worse than an infidel. But if God has such a low opinion of someone who “trusts God” rather than working for a living, imagine what a low opinion he must have of someone who stands around “trusting” Him while his wife and daughters are raped and his sons brutalized and killed.

Once again displaying his irrational hatred for history, my critic next attempts to set me up as a “racist.” Perhaps he thinks that we are all a group of white folks in FPCR. Well, he is wrong. We are not racists and it always amuses me a little when people attempt to “play the race card” as blatantly as this person has. Actually the critic apparently has plugs (or fingers) in his ears, because I did not say that religious freedom is only for Christians. However, I did make it clear that not all supposedly religious practices should be tolerated (for example the “honor killings” that go along with Muslim fanatics). Further, I made quite clear that the magistrate’s primary responsibility is to be a terror to the evil-doer. Now, that presupposes a definition of evil. Who gets to define “evil” for us, our manqué critic or God Himself? I propose the latter is a much better source for such matters.

Another example of his “fingers in his ears” response is his claim that I incite Christians to “be militant against the very authorities he claims that God ordained.” Again, had he listened with just a little bit of open-mindedness he would have heard me say repeatedly that the Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of this land and that when a supposed magistrate acts contrary to that constitution, it is he who has left off being lawfully ordained. The magistrate in this nation, right down to the cop on the beat, takes an oath to support and defend the constitution. When they fail to maintain that oath, it is indeed a good motivation for us to replace said magistrates with others. Once again, the liberals have decided that people who want constitutional government are the real terrorist, not the Arabs with bombs.

I find nothing at all wrong with his final admonition, except to point out that a synonym for “admonish” or “motivate” is “incite.” If you wish to listen to this sermon, you will find it at http://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=23101057190 .