There are times when the church will get things completely wrong and needs to be challenged, rebuked, called to repentance. This can apply to the whole of God’s church, a specific tribe/segment, network or denomination, a local church or individual Christians. Those responsible for proclaiming God’s Word need to be ready to do this from time to time.
However, there can be a risk that we become locked into a habit of consistently insisting that on every issue that the church is in deep sin and must be rebuked. I think we need to be very wary when this becomes a habit.
I’ve picked up recently on two instances where Brephos and their spokesperson, have made strong accusations about the church. First, we were accused of compromise and idolatry over the COVID pandemic. Secondly, the Keswick Convention were accused of similar things over a dispute Brephos had with them this summer.
Now one instance may or may not be a timely call, two instances might begin to raise eyebrows, three begins to look like a trend. Well, with us coming up to the 50 day mark after the General Election, Dave Brennon offered his reflections on the election and the result in this video.
His conclusion is that “fear hijacked the Christian mind.”
I thought it might be helpful to work through how he reached this conclusion and to analyse his commentary.
First, it is clear that Brennan did not want a Labour Government. It was something that he says he prayed we would be preserved from. It’s important to note that at this point, he is beginning to show that he has political preferences. This is of course his right and it might be a good thing from time to time for Christians to unashamedly state where they stand.
His argument is that a Labour government was going to be an act of judgement from God and wholly bad. Now, the specific reason for this is that he argues that Labour were going to make things worse for the unborn baby. Therefore, anyone who was either in favour of Labour, or even claimed to be neutral, could not, in his opinion truly, consistently claim to be on the side of the unborn child. In fact, he likens it to claiming to be pro Jewish in the second world war but neutral on the Nazis.
It is worth starting with that analogy. First of all, actually, history shows us that the understanding of Nazi Germany’s horrific evil in the holocaust was something that took time to emerge. In fact, opposition to Hitler arose not because of one issue. I’m not saying that this was right, just that this was the historical situation but what it does point to is that the Nazi’s were driven by an evil ideology that shaped their whole approach to everything. Is Brennan saying that the Labour Party has at its heart an evil ideology that shapes all it does? Secondly, again in terms of history, the option of voting for or against the Nazi’s wasn’t really an option for most of the time!
But the all consuming ideology is key. First, because it is clear that the Nazis were driven by one objective, the creation of a master race. This is very different t noting that a political party’s objectives are perhaps a mix of things such as justice for the poor, economic well-being, care for the environment, defence of the nation etc. We can observe these aims whilst recognising that there may be specific issues where a party’s position is wrong and sinful. The point is that this would be true for each of the parties. This does not preclude the possibility that we might conclude at particular times that the specific area of sin is so serious and has become so dominant as to make a vote for that party untenable. I concluded this in 2019 about both the main parties for different reasons.
So, if a political party made abortion or euthanasia central to their political position, then I think it would be wrong to vote for them. This also applies at constituency level, and it is important to remember that first of all, we elect constituency MPs not parties or Prime Ministers. It is important to note therefore that the Labour Party did not make policy commitmnts on abortion in its manifesto.
Labour seem favourable to decriminalising abortion and are likely to allow time for free votes on this. Remember, this is not the same as making it official party policy. Furthermore, whilst we might consider abortion a sin, we may even consider that it should continue to be regarded as criminal, it is possible to believe this and not think that the mothers themselves should usually go to prison but to regard them as much as the victims in all of this. This would be similar to seeing prostitution as a wicked evil but believing that it is the pimps and the users who are the wrong doers.
Therefore, I’m not sure why it was particularly more grievous that Labour should b ein power than any of the other main parties who all support abortion in principle.
Dave goes on to complain that Evangelicals Now had included a series of articles about the political parties and the election in the run up to the election and talked about voters making a decision. This is a peculiar bit of nit picking about words because Dave would have preferred them to talk about discernment. That discernment is required for informed decisions should not need stating in every news article.
He goes on to suggest that presenting all of the options as though it was possible to choose is a nonsense. He does not see how it is possible to claim that each of the parties might be compatible with Biblical commands, beliefs and values because each party has its own philosophy and these are incompatible with each other.
Here, he makes a series of quite serious missteps in logic. First of all, he assumes that differing political philosophies must be incompatible. He does not allow for the possibility that there may be differences on some things and agreements on others. Secondly, he confuses the distinction between saying that “all are equally valid and true” which I don’t think any Christian is saying, we all do have our views on which is best and recognising our finiteness and fallibility here. Just as we acknowledge that there are differences of opinion on secondary and tertiary issues in church life, so too it is possible that we can consider this in politics. I might hold strongly to a view on how church membership should be organised but exactly because I know that this could be wrong, I don’t see this as something to break fellowship with others over.
He also does not allow for both the fallibility of politicians and their philosophies and for common grace which might allow them to get some things right and some things wrong. Further, he doesn’t allow for context. It is possible that a political solution might work or be necessary in one time but not in another. Conservatives might tend to a monetarist and free market approach but recognise the need for nationalisation in wartime and increased spending in a crisis such as the pandemic. Progressives may prefer higher government spending overall but conclude that cuts and austerity are needed from time to time as in fact happened twice in Labour’s history, at the end of the 1970s and towards the end of the Blair/Brown era.
Fourthly, he seems to presume that because these philosophies disagree with each other that at least some and possibly all cannot agree at all with Biblical values. Again, this is to misunderstand political philosophy and where it sits in the hierarchy. In fact, it is to miss the point that has been put forward by people like Tom Holland in Dominion that Western culture is so heavily shaped by Christian thinking and values that even the competing philosophies now owe their heritage to those values. It is possible for Conservatives and Socialsits to trace the roots of their approach back to the Bible because their political philosophies are not the same as their heart motives.
As I’ve explained before, it is possible to be a socialist or a conservative or a liberal out of selfish motives but it is also possible to hold to any one of those positions because you care about morality and you care about the well-being of others. The political disagreements are not always about what the good ends are but about how we achieve them. A socialist may think you care best for the poor by offering union protection, guaranteed minimum wages, increases to wages, subsidies and a generous welfare state. A conservative may believe that we look after the vulnerable when those with the means are freed up to do so, that the poor benefit most from low inflation and taxes that these will enable the economic growth needed. There may also be differences over who the most vulnerable are.
Dave has real issue with the argument that we don’t tell people how to vote because that would be to bind consciences. This is to miss the point again about what it means to bind a conscience and when it is and isn’t right. I believe that it is right to bind consciences to God’s Word and this is perhaps part of the role of the pastor/preacher. What we do not have authorit to do is to bind them to things that God’s Word has nothing to say about. That’s why we can encourage people to think Biblically in terms of their motives for voting but given Scripture doesn’t bind us on specific policies, then nor should pastors.
All of this is really the build up though because what Dave actually has in his sights is what he believes to be our heart motives for not declaring for and against specific parties.He argues that we are afraid to do so. There’s then an interesting little sub argument about how back in the 1500s you could be sentenced to death for defending the Bible and our articulation of the Gospel but this is not so now. He claims that we focus our arguments on those points from the 1500s because we know we won’t get persecuted for it.
I find that argument troubling on a number of fronts. First, it shows little awareness of the specific points of opposition that believers face. Second, it is very western-centric. There are many brothers and sisters around the world who still face persecution and death because of the Bible and the Gospel, even where those persecuting them might be relaxed about their ethics.
More than that, though, I think that once again he is seeking to elevate things up he order of importance. Dave uses John the Baptist as an example. He argues that John the Baptist wasn’t beheaded for preaching the baptism of repentance. Rather, it was because he followed up with its implications. Now incidentally, he was opposed for preaching the baptism of repentance and included in that preaching was his demands that people followed through on the implications, the fruit. That in itself didn’t get him killed. It was the personal clash with Herod. Now, here’s the thing, Herod and his wife’s response to Jhon’s rebuke should have been to repent and get baptised. They didn’t the refused repentance. So, arguably, it was because of his preaching repentance that he was beheaded! It was the Gospel itself, not just its implications that caused the confrontation. Finally, even if John lost his life on an ethical matter plenty of others including James and likely Peter and Paul were martyred for the Gospel message itself.
Here is the thing though. Dave, once again presumes to know the hearts of other believers so that he can determine their motives. Now perhaps he is right to some degree. In fact, I’m sure that most Christians and pastors will acknowledge the problem of fear. That is different though from presuming that this is the motive for decisions and claiming to read hearts and minds infallibly. I’ve talked before about how my mum was brave, this did not mean she was fearless. It meant she took her fears to Jesus. I think that is true for many.
Now, I don’t expect Dave to read or agree with what I’ve written here. I suspect that those who have already made their minds up about how weak, compromised and idolatrous we all are will simply read my article as an other example of excuse making. I hope some will see tha this is not the case and reconsider.
However, I’m not primarily writing here to persuade those who have already long disappeared down this specific rabbit hole. Rather, I write mindful that anyone of us can fall into this trap. We can get locked on to a specific issue or cause and elevate it to first importance. Even if we don’t think of it as first, the fact it dominates our thoughts, words and actions suggests that it has reached that status. The risk then is that we increasingly find fault with the church and become more and more negative. We need to be wary of that danger. We need to watch that accusation doesn’t become a trend. We need to remember that if we love Christ then we will love his bride too.
Faithroots 