restoring our biblical and constitutional foundations

See You in Valley Forge!

 David Alan Black

If you haven’t made plans to attend the Constitution Party’s National Convention in historic Valley Forge June 23-26, I hope you will consider doing so. The venue is absolutely beautiful and the schedule and speaker line-up (present company excluded) are first rate. My friend Debbie Hopper of the National Coalition to Restore the Constitution is doing a fabulous job of organizing the event.

If you are dissatisfied with Republican sophistry—a world view of relativism wherein practical or expedient concerns swallow up a quest for objective reality, wherein political correctness replaces laws (as in the case of Roy Moore, who was abandoned by our president and his fellow Republicans)— you might give the Constitution Party a chance. I think you’ll find that its scalpel penetrates to the heart of the matter.

Of course, the Republican and Democratic Parties have taken it upon themselves to instruct Americans about the proper way to solve our problems—more money for failed government programs streaming from the “bottomless pit” called the U.S. Treasury. Well, it’s time to call this “solution” what it is—unbiblical and unconstitutional. We need to elect a different group of politicians (better, “statesmen” in the historic sense of the term) who are not in the pocket of the political, media, and educational establishment. We need thinking people who are able to challenge the destructive philosophy of big government upon which the crumbling house of American society has been erected.

Remember, folks, the description of American government in the U.S. Constitution is not meant to be a fairy tale picture of the ideal, lovely to contemplate but impossible to realize. We make a mistake of considering constitutional government as something extra, unusual, occasional, and irregular. We are so subnormal that the normal seems abnormal! True, it will probably take a major crisis to return to the old paths and even major surgery may be necessary, but that should not stop us from seeking what is best for our country now. The right side is not always the bright side immediately, but it will be ultimately.

2 Samuel 5:24 says: “And let it be, when thou hearest the sound of a going in the tops of the mulberry trees, that then thou shalt bestir thyself.” My friends, the moving of the Holy Spirit is not a lullaby. It is a summons, a bugle call to stir us to battle. God is on the march and we are not to watch it from the sidelines. It is a scandal for a man to be entertained when he should be enlisted!

The Constitution Party convention awaits you. It will not be a pageant for our entertainment. Attendance means not a vacation but a vocation. We are called to be soldiers, and soldiers belong in battle. We are united as Americans in ways people no longer understand, just as Washington and his half-naked soldiers endured a winter of starvation in their log huts while the British enjoyed the warmth and comforts of captured Philadelphia.

So to arms, men, to arms! Forsake the comforts of home!

On to Valley Forge!

May 19, 2004

David Alan Black is the editor of www.daveblackonline.com. His latest book, Why I Stopped Listening to Rush: Confessions of a Recovering Neocon, will be released in June.

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See No Evil

 David Alan Black

Yesterday in the Saint Louis airport CNN kept playing over and over again, ad nauseum, a 60-second piece promoting their “objective” coverage of the 2004 election. (TV monitors are everywhere in the terminal; there is no escaping them.) Such shameless self-promotion is not, however, why I refuse to get my news from CNN or PEOPLE or TIME or Rush or All Things Considered.

The U.S. press has shirked its duty to confront our policrats and instead go about their day hemming and harrumphing so that I can actually know more about what’s happening here (and what’s happening abroad at U.S. hands) by reading the foreign press. Our so-called free press simply repeats the statements of the Republicans and Democrats, and that includes the so-called “think-pieces” on current issues.

We are left with a situation in which we are ruled by propaganda. Such magniloquent statements as “We don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud” (Condi Rice) are reported, not examined. Moreover, disagree with the mainline press or call the current administration anti-republican and you are subjected to belittlement and base ad hominem. “Ignorance Is Strength” excuses the mendaciousness of our leaders, even though that motto is completely contrary to the spirit of America. Only on the margins of the media – on the Internet especially – do journalists dare speak their mind.

The mighty propaganda choir can fill your mind 24 hours a day if you like, as long as you are plugged in to Fox News or MSNBC or Sean Hannity of Bill O’Reilly. As O’Brien of the Inner Party tells the hapless Winston Smith in 1984, “Whatever the Party holds to be the truth, is truth. It is impossible to see reality except by looking through the eyes of the Party.”

The press’s see-no-evil attitude was nowhere more apparent than in Mr. Bush’s photo op aboard the Lincoln in front of the banner “MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.” This was the first sitting president to dress in military uniform in public – and the press completely ignored this moment of gross self-indulgence. Only Senator Robert Byrd observed the impropriety:

To me it is an affront to the Americans killed or injured in Iraq for the president to exploit the trappings of was for the momentary spectacle of a speech.

Our troops are under-manned and ill-equipped, yet Mr. Bush told an audience in Milwaukee on October 3, 2003, “They must have the best pay, the best equipment and the best possible training.” Our president has still to attend a single funeral for our brave soldiers, and when he does visit the troops, such as the “surprise” Thanksgiving trip to Baghdad in 2003, his audience has to be pre-selected so that nothing will mar the backdrop for using the photo op later.

It is time for us to overwhelm news corporations with cancelled subscriptions at every fresh manifestation of misinformation. In no way can the major news organizations of the United States be called a free press. Stick with them, and we’ll get what we deserve every time: hasty, immature, superficial, and misleading judgments – not to mention fraudulent slogans such as the one I saw over and over again on CNN yesterday.

August 16, 2004

David Alan Black is the editor of www.daveblackonline.com. His latest book is Why I Stopped Listening to Rush: Confessions of a Recovering Neocon.

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The Seduction of Politics

 David Alan Black  

“What! No Mount Sion? Did we not see the Delectable Mountains from the Gate of the City? Also, are we not now to walk by faith? Let us go on,” said Hopeful, “lest the man with the whips overtakes us again.” – John Bunyan, Pilgrim’s Progress

In his book, Tempting Faith: An Inside Story of Political Seduction, David Kuo, former deputy director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, reveals how the Republicans in the Bush administration sought the votes of evangelicals but had no real interest in leading a new Great Awakening. “This [is the] message that has been sent out to Christians for a long time now: that Jesus came primarily for a political agenda, and recently primarily a right-wing political agenda – as if this culture war is a war for God. And it’s not a war for God, it’s a war for politics. And that’s a huge difference,” said Kuo in an interview on 60 Minutes. But it shouldn’t take a White House insider and erstwhile compassionate conservative to convince us that mixing evangelical faith and Washington politics-as-usual is antithetical to the Gospel.

Today God and conservatism have practically merged into one, with the “wonder-working power” of politics driving a large segment of the Christian right. This momentous hour finds our generation of Christians, not filled with the Spirit, not focused on missions (as we should be), but drunk with wine – not the wine from a bottle (abstemious as we are) but all the stimulants of the evil one, the intoxications of Satan. And never has he devised more concoctions to give men false expectations as when he weds religion to politics. What a time for the church to be inebriated with empty political promises when she should be awake and alert to the real challenges of the hour!

Sin is our trouble, not liberalism in government. To treat cancer by temporary measures is to endanger the victim still worse. David Kuo will probably be considered a neurotic pessimist by his cheery fellow-preachers, but he is right and they are wrong, even if he learned his lesson the hard way. Modern political machinations – whether by the right wing or the left wing of evangelicalism – are nothing more than fads that work up mere optimism and positive thinking. Whenever government tries to make men good without being righteous – something the devil would love more than anything in this fallen world – the professing church becomes cluttered with hosts of superficial saints who never sell out to Christ.

Anyone who reads the New Testament will see that Jesus refused to identify Himself with any of the politico-religious parties of His day, whether they were called Pharisees, Herodians, Sadducees, or Zealots. Christians must maintain an ultimate commitment to Christ and eschew loyalty to a political party – any political party. It is indeed a decadent citizenry that rejects sound doctrine and heaps to itself politicians to tickle its itching ears.

Mr. Kuo is undoubtedly aware of the risks he is taking in airing his criticisms. When Alexander Solzhenitsyn delivered the 1978 commencement speech at Harvard, one newspaper said, “Prophets are not popular. They are uncomfortable people; they make poor house guests. Not only are they not honored in their own countries but sometimes not even in their own times. The greatest of them have been labeled as arrogant, self-righteous, presumptuous, unpatriotic.” Time will tell how quickly – and to what degree – Mr. Kuo will be demonized by his former colleagues. His experience is a reminder of how easy it is for well-meaning Christians to substitute political activism for genuine compassion. Most of the things we major on today are the very things the Pharisees majored on in their day, but they never knew the heart of God. They read the Scriptures but refused to come to the Word of life that they might be saved. They tithed but never gave themselves to the Lord. They prayed but never prayed the prayer of repentance. They were religious but never righteous. So it is today. What Isaiah called “a spirit of deep sleep” has lulled a large number of evangelicals into the stupor of a fool’s paradise.

As long as good men try to remedy conditions with temporary palliatives there will be a need for prophets like David Kuo. That’s because lostness – not liberalism, not libertarianism, not even “compassionate conservatism” – is our problem. We are sinners, blind, even lepers, and to try to make people religious without making them righteous only makes them harder to reach with what they need most.

October 19, 2006

David Alan Black is the editor of www.daveblackonline.com.

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The Scripture-Driven Church

 David Alan Black 

After three and a half years of ministry, Jesus was left with a mere 120 followers on the Day of Pentecost. But on that day the Lord added about 3,000 souls to this group of believers. In one day. What a remarkable work of the Spirit of God!

How did these new believers grow? It was all very simple. Luke spells it out for us in Acts 2:41-42. He says, “So then, when they had eagerly welcomed his word, they were baptized, and on that day about 3,000 souls were added [to the church]. And they devoted themselves [persistently and constantly] to the teaching of the apostles and to the fellowship, to the breaking of the bread and to the prayers.”

As the Great Commission of Matthew 28:19 shows, the Body of Christ grows in two ways – by the addition of new members (“baptizing” = evangelism), and by the nourishing of existing members (“teaching” = edification). The same pattern occurs here in Acts. First of all, evangelism takes place (they received the word, were baptized, and were identified with a group of believers), followed by edification (Bible study, fellowship, the Lord’s Supper, prayer). These believers were learning to love the Word of God (the apostles’ teaching), and they were learning to love the people of God (fellowship). And this was not just an occasional affair. They persevered in it! It was not a fad. It was a pattern.

As these new Christians began to meet all over Jerusalem in small groups, they devoted themselves to the Bible. Their thinking was changed, and as a result their lives were changed. They also enjoyed “fellowship” – they had a common love, a common mission, a common concern for each other, and a common conviction about the Word of God. What a joyous, brotherly fellowship! The atmosphere must have been akin to a wedding banquet. It was a time of magnificent companionship, edification, caring, sharing, catching up, getting to know others, praying with others, exhorting and admonishing one another, maturing in the faith. This banquet atmosphere is not surprising. The Lord’s Supper was indeed a banquet that foreshadowed the Marriage Supper of the Lamb. This was not just a time for eating but for sharing together in that symbolic testimony to the basis of their unity – the life and death of their Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Might we draw a definition of the church from Luke’s description here in Acts 2:41-42? Try this on for size: A local church is a group of baptized believers whom God has assembled for Bible study and fellowship, for the Lord’s Supper and prayer. These might be considered the minimum requirements for a group of New Testament disciples:

EVANGELISM (“Baptizing”)

• They eagerly welcomed the message of salvation.

• They were baptized.

• They were added to the church.

EDIFICATION (“Teaching”)

• They devoted themselves to the teaching of the apostles.

• They enjoyed mutual fellowship.

• They celebrated the Lord’s Supper.

• They prayed for each other.

This is a picture of the Scripture-Driven church. And it began with a handful of faithful disciples.

It seems to me that these seven things are the minimum of what it takes to be considered a New Testament church. Later, the church developed into a more mature Bride. The church took on additional marks. These characteristics were at least seven in number:

• The church met weekly.

• It met in homes.

• Its meetings were highly interactive and participatory.

• It enjoyed elder-led consensus governing.

• It was age-integrated (children met with their parents).

• It observed the Lord’s Supper weekly as a full meal.

• It practiced church discipline.

A lot of nonsense has been written about how these characteristics are impossible for churches today. Impossible, yes – unless the Spirit of God is at work! I believe there is an incredible awakening sweeping across the churches in our nation today. People are realizing just how far today’s institutionalized, professionalized church has departed from the New Testament. They are convinced that the Scriptural patterns for doing church are as valid in 2005 as they were in the Book of Acts.

There is a stirring afoot, and when we understand that Jesus is the Head of the Church, the Husband of His Bride, we will not be content to be anything less than what He desires for us in love.

February 7, 2005

David Alan Black is the editor of www.daveblackonline.com. If you would like to know more about becoming a follower of King Jesus, please feel free to write Dave.

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The Screen of the Scriptures:

Thoughts on the Southern Baptist Resolution to Remove Our Children from Public Schools

 David Alan Black

I am much afraid that schools will prove to be great gates of hell unless they diligently labor in explaining the Holy Scriptures, engraving them in the hearts of the youth. I advise no one to place his child where the Scriptures do not reign paramount. Every institution in which men are not increasingly occupied with the Word of God must become corrupt.   – Martin Luther.

In the 27 years I’ve been married and the 20 years I’ve been a parent I have thought a lot about education. It seems to me that parents today are not so much in a crisis of pedagogy as they are in a crisis of philosophy. The great danger most parents face is not that they don’t do anything for their children—they do plenty. It’s that they don’t do the right things.

This is not a put down. I honor those parents who want with all their heart to serve God well. But we are all so prone to getting confused and losing direction. Even when we know what is right, it is difficult to do it. The poet Ovid described it this way:

I see the right, approve it too/Condemn the wrong—yet wrong pursue.

This week the Southern Baptist Convention will debate a resolution that encourages parents to withdraw their children from public schools. But the main issue, as I see it, is not education. It is whether Christ is our first priority. The God-centered church must be willing to put all of its activities on trial before the judgment seat of Christ. Is it all for Him?

Steadfast commitment to this priority will keep Christians and churches from getting into endless areas where they don’t belong. Jesus’ statement “Let the dead bury the dead” seems unnecessarily severe, but the devil knows how distractions will get us off balance.

The tendency we all have is to go about God’s business man’s way. We ignore Paul’s warning to the Colossian church (Col 2:4, 8):

I am saying this [in view of the fact that all truth and knowledge are found only in Christ—Col 2:1-3] that no person should lead you astray with persuasive speech [i.e., with manipulative rhetoric so as to sucker you into error]…. Continue to be on the lookout that no person cart you off as a captive into heresy by means of a philosophy characterized by vain deceit according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world [i.e., philosophy from a wrong source] and not according to Christ [who is the measure and norm of true tradition].

The most important feature of the total context of Colossians 2 is the war between two wisdoms—the wisdom of the world, a pseudo-wisdom, and the wisdom of Christ, the only true wisdom. All the sad symptoms of immaturity that Paul had to deal with in this letter are attributed to the fact that many of these professing Christians at Colossae were enamored with worldly wisdom. Paul insists, however, in doing God’s business God’s way.

Martin Luther put it so well. There can be no true education without a knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. In fact, the oldest universities in America—Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Dartmouth—were founded by Christians who agreed with Luther. Harvard’s “rules and precepts,” adopted in 1646, included the following essentials:

Every one shall consider the main end of his life and studies to know God and Jesus Christ which is eternal life.

Seeing the Lord giveth wisdom, every one shall seriously by prayer in secret seek wisdom of Him.

Harvard students were required to read the Scriptures twice daily, and 52 percent of seventeenth-century Harvard graduates became ministers!

Much education today, however, ignores God. Subtly it has removed Christ from the center of the universe and put man in His place. It omits God on the basis of “academic freedom” while at the same time it denies that freedom to those with a Christian world view.

I once heard Francis Schaeffer say that the root of the trouble in the Roman Catholic Church during the Reformation was its humanism. The Reformation, on the other hand, accepted the biblical picture of a total fall—one that affected the whole man, including his intellect and will. For the Reformers, final and sufficient knowledge rested in the Bible—that is, the principle of Sola Scriptura, Scripture alone. The Scriptures give the key to two kinds of knowledge—the knowledge of God, and the knowledge of men and nature. There was no idea of man being autonomous. There is the real lordship of Christ over the whole man. This is what the Reformers taught and what the Bible teaches. But you cannot have this answer unless you hold to the Reformation view of the Scriptures.

What it all comes down to is this: If we are Christian parents, our approach to education must say, “Come, my friends, let’s journey back to what’s important. Let’s take our eyes from lesser issues and focus on Christ. It’s time to reorient ourselves first of all to Him and the Scriptures.”

This is what the proponents of the SBC resolution are trying to do. The decision to withdraw from the public school system should be based not on what may be wrong in a particular public school but on a recognition that a God-centered and Bible-based education is mandatory for Christian parents.

If we think we can keep our children in a secular school system and escape the dumbed-down, amoral, and immoral results of secular humanism in schools, we are mistaken. The reason is that secular humanism is itself a religion. The biblical view of man’s nature is in sharp conflict with secular humanism, which teaches that man is basically good. Every man-centered system of education is, consciously or unconsciously, built on this philosophy.

Nor are public schools value-neutral. They never have been. Government education is an intentional and highly effective effort by anti-theists to lead children away from their parents and the church. That the prevailing philosophies and methodologies of American public education are leftist is not up for debate. Leftists have dominated the federal Department of Education, most state Departments of Education, the teachers’ unions, and many teachers colleges and education foundations for decades. Most rank and file teachers know this, but the situation is so deplorable that they dare not speak out.

In his fictional look at the future, Brave New World, written in 1934, Aldous Huxley wrote:

A really efficient totalitarian state would be one in which the all-powerful executive of political bosses and their army of managers control a population of slaves who do not have to be coerced, because they love their servitude. To make them love it is the task assigned, in present-day totalitarian states, to the ministries of propaganda, newspaper editors and school teachers (emphasis added).

The “new” education imposed on America’s schools in the last 60 years has fulfilled this prophecy to a “t.” It’s an education that has eroded and destroyed the biblical and constitutional foundations upon which a stable society must rest.

Perhaps that’s why more and more Southern Baptist parents are saying, “Enough is enough.” Any parent can secure a Christian education for his child. Every Christian family already owns the primary Textbook. A child’s education will fall short if he does not sift everything he learns through the screen of the Scriptures.

By the way, if we do honor God in this fashion, don’t expect the applause of professing Christendom. Nevertheless, we must be true to the Sola Scriptura principle if we ever hope to be faithful parents and faithful servants of the Lord.

June 14, 2004

David Alan Black is the editor of www.daveblackonline.com. His latest book, Why I Stopped Listening to Rush: Confessions of a Recovering Neocon, will be released later this month.

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Scot McKnight on the Emerging Church

 David Alan Black  

It seems the blogging world is agog over Scot McKnight’s lecture on theemerging church (availablehere). And rightly so, for a mighty good address it is. I have been asked by friends what my reaction has been to this movement, and for what it’s worth I place on record a few, passing thoughts.

Allowing for a certain excess in language – Stephen Board once criticized Malcolm Muggeridge for a similar fault, calling it “Mugghorea” – I think Scot is right about many things, not least in saying that the emerging church is “more an Anabaptist movement than anything else.” If so, would it not behoove us to study what the Anabaptists taught and believed and practiced? Scot is also correct, I think, in asking his readers to forego Carson and read Gibbs and Bolger instead (Emerging Churches: Creating Christian Community in Postmodern Cultures, Baker, 2005). Why? The latter book lets the movement speak for itself. For myself, though not an emergent, I heartily concur with certain emphases in the movement such as every-member ministry, consensus leadership, and “serving others with liberality” (what an ear-delighting phrase!). As Scot notes, some emerging churches are foregoing “worship services.” (Agree. I think you will look in vain for the meeting of the church to be described as a worship service. Worship in the New Testament is 24/7.) They are questioning the need to meet in “sanctuaries.” (They are right: the church is people, not a building.) They ask, “Is it necessary to make a monologue the most important thing on Sunday morning?” Or, “What would happen if we got rid of the pulpit (which stands six feet above contradiction) and did our teaching on the same level as the people?” No wonder the emerging church is considered a threat to traditional evangelical ecclesiology. Anything more likely to raise the hackles of those who tout their inflated membership statistics and their majestic buildings and their oratorical prowess can scarcely be imagined.

One of the best parts of Scot’s talk is this quote, not from Scot himself but from Mark Twain, whom he delights to reference: “Habit is habit, and not to be flung out of the window by any man, but coaxed downstairs one step at a time.” That is right, and wise, and I applaud such Realpolitik. We need God at every hand and in everything, and we cannot push our agenda – any agenda – upon our congregations. I must say that in reading Scot I was struck by his humility. (Confession: Scot and I once publicly debated Markan priority at an annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature,but we got along splendidly.) How shrewd are the things he is saying, and how realistic and level-headed. It is not that Scot is not a “Bible-believing evangelical” (my terms, not his). But Scot has moved beyond traditional evangelicalism (the Gospel, he reminds us, is “more than Jesus coming to die for my sins so I can get to heaven” – ouch!) to embrace the centrality of what he calls the “Jesus Creed” – that we are to love God and love others. The goal, as he puts it, is not so much to master the Bible but to be mastered by it – or, as I like to tell my students, the Bible was not given for our information but for our transformation – every word, everywhere (verbal-plenary inspiration). Thus, even as we confess and uphold (and, in my opinion, we should confess and uphold) biblical inspiration as taught in 2 Tim. 3:16, we cannot forget the implications of that great doctrine as expressed in the very next verse: that all of us – not just the “professional class of clergy” (whatever that is) – might be “equipped for every good work.” Personally, I am convinced that conservative theology can and must be wedded to social justice. At any rate, in my mind it is certainly not an either-or issue, as Becky and I are discovering in our twice-yearly ministry trips to Ethiopia. Why, then, should we limp along on one leg when the Lord has given us two?

Shallow (or non-existent) evangelism – is that, then, the Achilles Heel of emerging Christianity? Scot seems to think so; and in view of the fact that evangelism is not the task of ordained ministers alone but the responsibility of us all, I have no doubt that emergers fall short of the ideal. But what group of Christians doesn’t? Evangelism is simply the outworking of the Spirit of God in the heart of the believer and cannot be taught, much less coerced. If you feel that the emerging church is lackadaisical about witnessing, there is, I suppose, just as much justification for pointing an accusing finger at any group of evangelicals. It is when we cannot keep quiet about the Savior, it is when we are so full of the Holy Spirit that when we are bumped into, it is not anger or irritation that spills out but the words of transforming love – it is then that we become true witnesses. The biblical call to lifestyle evangelism is not something I have always obeyed. But I do now, and I hope to go on plumbing its depths in the years ahead.

In short, many attempts have been made to “define” the emerging church, and it seems to me that Scot has summed up his position as well as any. Jesus announced the imminent transformation of the material world into the world of the kingdom of God. He exhorted His followers to seek that perfection that would enable them to enjoy a new existence in the new world. He preached the abandonment of the things of this world even as He penetrated the world with love and good deeds and the forgiveness of sin. To do good was the whole duty of man. His followers were allowed to be indifferent to worldly status, but not to their duty towards others, including the so-called “riff-raff” of society whether they be down-and-outers or up-and-outers. We enter into God’s way as we turn from lives rooted in self to lives rooted in Jesus.

The single most important thing I have learned from the emergers is a reemphasis: that Christian fellowship is a fellowship of ordinary human beings (cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education, notes Scot) working together for something much bigger than any of us, and that the way we ought to live – though none of us can do it perfectly – is to take no thought for anything but what God wants, and that is to love Him by serving others. Today Jesus is calling us to move from the sanctuary to the street. He calls us to be leaders by serving. He challenges some of our most cherished practices and destroys some of our most sacred prejudices. Jesus lived a life of greatness that comes not by grabbing but giving, not by saving but sharing, not by asserting self but denying self. And into that kind of life He is calling all of us, whether we belong to emerging Christianity or not.

Wherever we turn, then, in the debate over the emerging church, we cannot escape our complete and utter dependence upon the power and filling of the Holy Spirit. Without Him we can effect nothing.

November 3, 2006

David Alan Black is the editor of www.daveblackonline.com.

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Schwarzenegger: Bad Actor, Worse Governor

 David Alan Black 

It’s the most difficult [decision] I’ve made in my entire life, except the one I made in 1978 when I decided to get a bikini wax.  – Arnold Schwarzenegger announcing his gubernatorial candidacy on The Tonight Show.

I used to think that the best joke about Arnold Schwarzenegger was David Letterman’s late-night quip. He said the number one Arnold Schwarzenegger Campaign Promise was to “Speak directly to voters in clear, honest, broken English.” I’ve changed my mind, however, since reading the latest flurry of support for Schwarzenegger coming from conservative Republicans, many of whom are evangelical Christians.

That the question of whether evangelical Christians should vote for Schwarzenegger can even be raised shows how willing evangelicals are to compromise their principles when it comes to political elections. This is the philosophy that says Christian values don’t really matter in the political system. “Sure, Schwarzenegger is not as conservative as we’d like, but he’s a Republican—and that’s gotta be better than having a Democrat as governor!” Indeed, Schwarzenegger can and likely will win the recall election due largely to Republican voters who place pragmatism over principle.

For what it’s worth, my message to evangelical voters in California is this. If you want to choose as your next governor a pro-abortion, pro-homosexual, and anti-Second Amendment candidate, go right ahead. If you want to vote for a man who in a 1977 interview admitted taking part in group sex, have at it. If you want to confuse economic success (which Schwarzenegger certainly has achieved) with knowledge of the Constitution and biblical law, you are certainly free to do so. Just forget that the man you’re voting for has killed more than 300 people on screen, or that he has posed for nude photos, or that he supports gun control, or that he once compared weight-lifting with sex, or that he would allow women to continue killing their babies. After all, a Republican governor is needed in California, I dare say!

On the other hand, if you want a candidate who will restore morality, ethics, and common sense to public service, you’ll have to look elsewhere. If you seek a politician who will return our Constitution to its proper place in our Republic, you’ll have to look elsewhere. If you believe in an individual’s Constitutional right to keep and bear arms, you’ll have to look elsewhere. If you believe that a doctor, when treating a pregnant woman, has two patients—the mother and the unborn baby—you’ll have to look elsewhere. And in this case, “looking elsewhere” may mean not voting at all if that means compromising your Christian values.

Rev. Louis P. Sheldon, chairman of the Traditional Values Coalition, has stated that Arnold Schwarzenegger would create a “moral vacuum” in Sacramento if he became California’s governor. “As Governor, Mr. Schwarzenegger would be a darker villain than any he has faced in his movies. And when it comes to the moral issues that Californians really care about—he gives us inaction not action.” In other words, bad actor, worse governor.

Why evangelicals should still need proof that the Republican Party has sold its soul for election-day pottage is beyond me. But if you’re one who still holds to the lesser-of-two-evils philosophy, take a good hard look at the California recall election—and the support the Terminator is getting from “conservative” Christians.

September 9, 2003

David Alan Black is the editor of www.daveblackonline.com.

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Schism

 David Alan Black

For there must also be divisions among you, so that those who are approved may be recognized. 1 Corinthians 11:19.

I believe we may be moving to another great schism in the Body of Christ. The church is being challenged on its commitment to the Lordship of Jesus Christ in a way it has not experienced since the Battle for the Bible in the 1970s.

It is not so much that the “trial” over the authority and trustworthiness of the Bible is over. In a strange fashion, that issue has raised its head again over the question of whether we are willing to speak the truth when it comes to the state.

Many are called, but few are chosen; and the chosen are known by their choices. Will we continue to compromise with the pro-sodomites in our midst, the proponents of preemptive warfare, the supporters of intrusive government (remember, the welfare system is a breach of the Eighth Commandment), etc.? How shall we choose?

The coming schism will center on our national idolatry. The urge to “build a city, a tower, a name for ourselves” (the sin of Babel, Genesis 11:1-9) is idolatry. For people to say “Give us a king to rule us like the nations” (1 Samuel 8) is idolatry. For the nation to wage wars against pagan enemies when the nation itself has not done righteousness is idolatry. When we engage in political discourse without theological discourse it is idolatry.

A goodly number of Christians are finding themselves in contradiction to the status quo and even in resistance against it. Taking Christ seriously has put them into opposition to the present order and its definition of success. They are accused of being biased and narrow-minded. But Christians must be biased because the God of the Scriptures is biased. Hence they are calling upon the church to extricate itself from its unconscious compromising practices of political theology. The crucified Christ is their highest authority. For them, faithfulness to the truth, not accommodation, is the appropriate mission for disciples of Christ.

Will we continue to subject the Word of God to the claims of cultural ideology? Will we continue to confine the Lordship of Christ to a narrow “spiritual” realm and surrender the rest of life to the false gods? Will we continue to pay uncritical allegiance to the state? Or will we recognize that Christ is the Lord of life even in those situations where His Lordship is not readily recognized? This is precisely our dilemma.

How we answer these questions will determine the future of the church in America. Our struggle today is not merely against an evil ideology; it is against a pseudo-religious ideology that was conceived and nurtured in the bosom of the evangelical church. What is at stake is not merely the future of the American church but the credibility of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

A major schism seems likely unless we declare unequivocally that statism is a sin – that it is a travesty of the Gospel, a betrayal of the Reformed tradition, and a heresy.

September 5, 2004

David Alan Black is the editor of www.daveblackonline.com. His latest book is Why I Stopped Listening to Rush: Confessions of a Recovering Neocon.

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   restoring our biblical and constitutional foundations

The Scandal of the “Great Society”

 David Alan Black

In his first State of the Union address on January 8, 1964, President Lyndon Baines Johnson announced: “This Administration today, here and now, declares unconditional war on poverty.” On August 20 of the same year Johnson signed into law his first antipoverty bill—the Equal Opportunities Acts—declaring, “Today, for the first time in the history of the human race, a great nation is able to make and is willing to make a commitment to eradicate poverty among it people.”

After defeating Republican candidate Barry Goldwater in the November 1964 election, Johnson expanded his war on poverty themes in his January 4, 1965, State of the Union speech. He requested federal funds to assist the elderly, the poor, black Americans, needy children, immigrants, and the mentally ill. He requested legislation to improve education, to provide scholarships and loans, to increase mental and physical health services, to raise Social Security benefits, to double the war against poverty, to improve the inner city, to provide housing, to fight crime and delinquency, and to protect the environment. Johnson proposed to use government to “keep our nation prosperous…, to open opportunity to all our people…, and to improve the quality of American life.”

Each of these “Great Society” programs seemed absolutely necessary and worthwhile, but there were serious flaws lurking just below the surface. “It became an exercise in grantsmanship,” said Jack Flynn of the Department of Housing and Urban Development. “In the end, those that got the money were the ones that wrote the best grant applications and had the best connections in Washington.”

The Great Society determined that the federal government could, on its own, eliminate poverty and transform the nation. It couldn’t. The programs were top-heavy, benefiting staff more than the poor they were intended to assist. Top-heaviness grew until the federal government became the nation’s top employer. To cite just one example, the Community Action Program grew to employ more than 180,000 people in 907 different agencies that spent about $1.2 billion every year.

Just ten years after Johnson initiated his Great Society program, his successor, Richard Nixon, declared that much of its structure needed dismantling. Referring to the ambitious programs launched in the 1960s, he said, “The intention…was laudable. But the results, in case after case, amounted to dismal failure…. Too much money has been going to those were supposed to help the needy and too little to the needy themselves.” Though hundreds of billion of dollars were spent by the federal government to fund Great Society initiatives, millions of Americans still lived in poverty, the problem of nation illiteracy only increased, and adequate medical care was still beyond the reach of masses of Americans.

Unfortunately, the Great Society created by Lyndon Johnson left another kind of legacy as well. It bred a new sense of dependency on the government to solve man’s troubles. President Johnson undoubtedly loved the country and wanted to help its people, but the Great Society was doomed from its inception. Johnson did his best to mobilize the federal government to solve the problems of the world, but he failed, and the nation has been saddled with the cost of that failure ever since.

In an essay entitled “Government Not the Solution to All Problems,” James Antle has said, “Notice the assumption that the choice is between government redistribution of wealth and the mass starvation of the poor. There can be no way to care for the poor without the government forcibly extracting compassion from people’s paychecks. This does not take into consideration that perhaps a compassionate society’s obligation to its unfortunate members belongs to families, communities and individuals, not government. Maybe there is more to compassion than simply endorsing new government programs and supporting politicians who promise to keep as many people as possible on the public dole.”

The Great Society also explains why the public tends to support government growth. In contemporary America, the state has become a “god,” a super-problem solver, and if you don’t support government solution to our problems you must be opposed to that problem being solved.

We are learning in America—or should be learning—that Big Government is like a huge monster with an insatiable appetite. The more it feeds, the more it grows in its ever-increasing lust.

August 14, 2003

David Alan Black is the editor of www.daveblackonline.com.

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   restoring our biblical and constitutional foundations

Saying Goodbye to the Needs-Based Church

 David Alan Black 

I have frequently stated the case for a biblical ecclesiology over against an ecclesiology based on human tradition and secular anthropology. I shall not repeat that argument here. Here I wish to observe that all talking and writing is worthless until we act upon our biblical principles. It is this need for action that I now pursue.

I address myself primarily to leaders of local churches, though all believers ought to be concerned about the alarming trends in modern evangelicalism. I would ask them the following question: Is your ministry model man-centered or God-centered, is it needs-based or truth-based, is it consumer driven or Scripture-driven, is it culturally defined or theologically defined?

I can, perhaps, simplify the question even further. Is your ministry biblical? While repairing the shoes of others, the shoemaker’s own soles may wear out. So I ask: Are you willing to stand for the truth, or will you accommodate your life and ministry to the world? Consider these options:

• Is your ministry driven by pragmatism more than principle?
• Have you succumbed to the “church of the unchurched” philosophy?
• Do you place relevance above truth, success above faithfulness?
• Does the authoritative Scripture shape your practice of ministry, or do you submit the Scripture to your own examination?

Someone once said that ministers apostatize by degrees. They slowly drift from a biblical mooring and end up abandoning a biblical course. May I say it plainly? Any attempt to abandon a biblical philosophy of ministry will inevitably lead to a pragmatic, carnal, and even sinful approach to ministry. We must make sure we begin and end with the Scriptures.

Our first responsibility as disciples of Jesus is to study God’s Word on all these issues. Too often we come to the Scriptures with our own preconceived notions seeking to find proof-texts that justify our prejudices. In a day when evangelicalism has become complacent, compliant, and compromising, the tendency is to baptize the status quo and place it above criticism.

But this is totally unacceptable. The church stands at a crossroads. Either it will be radically theological and therefore radically obedient to God regardless of the puny ambitions of man, or it will be part of the “new” ideology that looks magnificent on the outside but on the inside is full of dead men’s bones.

To choose Christ implies rejecting needs-based Christianity; to choose needs-based Christianity means rejecting the implications of the gospel. The alternative, I believe, is just that stark, and a choice must be made.

July 31, 2005

David Alan Black is the editor of www.daveblackonline.com. If you would like to know more about becoming a follower of King Jesus, please feel free to write Dave.

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