Sermon Video: "I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners." Mark 2:13-17

After preaching yet again to large crowds, Jesus decides to add to his group of disciples by making an unorthodox addition: the tax collector Levi (Matthew).  After this stunner, for the tax collectors were viewed as traitors and thus outcasts in Jewish society, Jesus goes a step further and has dinner with Levi and his friends.  The Pharisees, shocked by this co-mingling with 'sinners' ask for an explanation.  Jesus famously replies, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, bu the sick.  I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners."  Jesus reaches out to society's outcasts, 'lost causes', and villains, hoping to find there those who recognize their lost state who might be willing to repent.  Jesus calls us to do likewise, finding ways to connect with those who aren't like us, remembering the grace we have received, that we too might help the 'sick' find the Great Physician.

To watch the video, click on the link below:

Beware of the Political Church: John MacArthur declares, "any real true believer" can only vote one way.

This trend has been a long time coming within American Evangelicalism, and we have seen similar claims before, but Pastor John MacArthur, one of Evangelicalism's most noteworthy leaders, has declared that in 2020, in order to be a "real true believer" you can only vote for one political party. {John MacArthur interview, quote at 5:44 mark} {John MacArthur says 'true believers' will vote for Trump, can't affirm abortion and trans activism - by Michael Gryboski, the Christian Post}

The question, as John MacArthur is framing it is not, "Which candidate/party more closely adheres to Biblical principles and Christian ethics?"  But rather, "Are you a real Christian or not?"  These are monumentally different questions revealing a significant difference in Christian Worldview.  The first is a position of Grace that realizes that in this world we have no perfect choices, that every vote taken by a committed Christian is an act of compromise, for no candidate, and no party, can truly represent the leadership ideal embodied by Jesus, nor the fullness of his command to us, John 15:12 (NIV) "My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you."  In other words, a position influence by Grace and Christian Liberty will recognize the anguish felt by many Christians, both now and in generations past, when choosing between two imperfect choices, and would even recognize the possibility that a Christian might, in obedience to his/her own conscience and with principled understanding, choose to vote on the basis of other moral issues than the three or four MacArthur considers to be primary, might vote for a third party candidate, or even to NOT vote at all.  The second position reflects a binary (only two choices) position of Law: "either you're with us or against us."  There is no room here for discussion, debate, or nuance.  The choices are light and dark, good and evil, only a fake Christian (still then, presumably NOT redeemed and still headed toward Hell) could think otherwise.
This is not the first such binary choice that John MacArthur has embraced recently.  Following the controversial reopening of Grace Community Church for in-person worship {links to my two responses below}, Pastor MacArthur declared that churches that obeyed government mandates were not real churches, their leaders not real shepherds. {Excerpt from 1st sermon after reopening: “There has never been a time when the world didn’t need the message of the true church,” he said. “I have to say, ‘true church.’ I hate to think of that, but there’s so many false forms of the church. Let them shut down.” Evangelical pastor John MacArthur suggests churches that remain closed during COVID-19 are not “true” churches}.  A pattern of adding to the list of things that differentiate, in John MacArthur's opinion, true Christians/churches/pastors from false one is growing.
1. How any Christian votes is NOT a test of faith.
I know that John MacArthur takes Martin Luther's Five Solae seriously, in this case Sola Fide and Sola Gratia, so why is he (inadvertently?) adding to the Reformation's declaration the need for 'real true' Christians to vote the way he believes they must?  Instead of judging John MacArthur's intentions, let me simply observe that it has becoming increasing evident that he believes that the Church is on the precipice of a cliff, that America is lurching toward oblivion, and that these increased stakes have seemingly resulted in increasingly politically partisan stances. 
Here's the thing, even if everything John MacArthur believes about the Democrat Party is true, even if the Republican Party are the saviors of America, even if there is only one morally acceptable way for Christians who respect the authority of the Bible to vote, that would still fall far, far, far short of being a way to determine who is a genuine Christian and who isn't.  One of John MacArthur's regular emphases is (rightly) the sufficiency of Scripture {Sola Scriptura}, but where in Holy Scripture does it tell us that we can judge the sheep and the goats by how they vote?  Matthew 25:31-16 contains a dire warning from Jesus that God will separate the true believers from the frauds on the basis of acts of charity toward those in need, for these actions (or lack thereof) will be sufficient to demonstrate who is living by faith and who is not.  What Jesus doesn't mention, nor does any other NT writer, is a civic test of faith.  The reason for this is pretty straightforward:
2. Our citizenship is in Heaven.
One of the inconsistencies of John MacArthur's very public, and very partisan insistence upon opening up his church's 3,000 seat sanctuary without any social distancing and without masks {John MacArthur fails to distinguish between necessary and unnecessary risk, plus End Times anti-government speculation} {John MacArthur jumps the shark with COVID-19 response} is his very clear repudiation of the idea that Church and State have overlapping jurisdictions.  He even went so far as to write, "the church does not in any sense rule the state."  And yet, at the exact same time that he is fighting the state of California in court, and doing interview after interview in support of that fight, John MacArthur is also declaring that every "real true believer" in America is required to vote for one particular political party.  You can't have it both ways, either there is separation of Church and State or there isn't.  You cannot posit simultaneously time that Christians must be allowed by the government to do their own thing, without any restrictions, and that Christians should be intimately involved in the way in which government is run.  How can we be on the outside, and in charge, too?
In the end, whoever wins in November will have ZERO impact upon whether or not you, me, or John MacArthur is welcomed into heaven with the phrase, "Well done, good and faithful servant!" (Matthew 25:23). 
Why can't our civic responsibilities be the basis of judging our faith?  Philippians 3:20 (NIV) But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ.  That I was born an American has nothing to do with my standing before Almighty God.  It doesn't help me or hurt me in any way.  That 95% of the world's population was not given this blessing at birth, has nothing to do with their standing before Almighty God.  Each and every genuine follower of Jesus Christ has a superseding citizenship, has been adopted into a heavenly family.  The Word of God has chosen to define its own tests of faith, to tell us how we can judge ourselves, and how we can evaluate others.  We have no right to add to that list.

Mitigating racism can't wait: Why Pastor Robert Jeffress is wrong

1. The Gospel isn't only about saving souls.

One of the things that has been misconstrued, particularly by some Protestants, and often by Evangelicals in particular, is the notion that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is only really about saving souls.  This tends to manifest itself in an abnormal focus on getting people to say a 'Sinner's Prayer' together with a lack of follow-up discipleship.  In other words, it is a focus on the beginning of the Christian experience to the detriment of what follows after, on becoming a Christian but not on being a Christian.  This imbalance isn't healthy, and it isn't what the Scriptures have taught us about how the Church should function. 

Ephesians 2:8-10  New International Version
8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast. 10 For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

Too often, Ephesians 2:8-10 is quoted as Ephesians 2:8-9, but Paul didn't end his thought there, our salvation by grace through faith is the first step toward the 'good works' that we are called to do once we are saved.  These 'good works' are not an optional part of being a Christian, for God himself has 'prepared in advance' what we are to accomplish because of our redemption has made us capable of so doing.

James 2:14-18  New International Version
14 What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? 15 Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. 16 If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? 17 In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.
18 But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.”
Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds.

Here we see faith in action, knee deep in issues of poverty, those same issues that are often derided as 'social justice' by those who claim the Gospel has no room for them.  Can we afford to address social issues ONLY and neglect the spiritual need of the Lost?  Of course not, but we are equally unbalanced when we, as a Church, put all our emphasis on spiritual needs and neglect physical/emotional/social needs.  Every Christian, and every church, needs to be able to 'show me your faith' through acts of righteousness.

2. The Bible is full of examples of systematic actions taken in response to sinful behavior.

If the only progress we could make in society against evil was to convert the Lost, why in the Bible is God always taking larger, more systematic actions?  The examples are plentiful, from the flood of Noah, to Joseph's program to feed the people during the famine, to Moses leading the people out of slavery (when Pharaoh was in no mood to change his mind), to the punishment of the people of Israel wandering for 40 years in the desert, to the command to Joseph to eliminate the Canaanites as God's wrath against multiple generations of wickedness, to the the Law of Moses' provisions to help the widows and orphans (which benefited Ruth because Boaz obeyed them), not to mention the Year of Jubilee's commands to free all slaves and forgive all debts.  The ideal society, envisioned by the Law of Moses, contained example after example of rules, from God, designed to ensure justice and to eliminate generational poverty.  When the prophets cried out against the mistreatment of the oppressed, they were addressing the spiritual need of the people, because that injustice was one of the ways in which spiritual illness manifested itself.  Pastor Jeffress rightly understands that racism is connected to darkened human hearts, but has decided that only one tool can be used to combat it, thus abandoning the example of how the prophets sent by God addressed the spiritual need of Israel: holistically.  The cancer analogy he uses is a false one.  When fighting against cancer, doctors use everything that will help the patient survive, just because chemotherapy (for example) is what is needed to kill the cancer cells and other efforts would be futile without it, doesn't mean the patient won't also receive IV fluids or steroids; a holistic approach is needed in medicine, and in society as well.
Jesus himself continues this trend, challenging the Pharisees by healing on the Sabbath, overturning the tables in the Temple, and even rejecting the half-measure of establishing a Messianic Kingdom in favor of a far deeper and more systematic upheaval in the form of his own vicarious death and resurrection.  When Jesus saw injustice at work, he confronted it directly on an individual level, challenged those who upheld the system that created it, and ultimately gave his very life to destroy the root of the problem.  Had Jesus followed Pastor Jeffress' racism approach, he would have told those seeking healing that their suffering was a symptom, and thus not his problem, would have ignored the Pharisees (rather than going out of his way to confront them), and would have simply waited until his Passion to address the 'real problem'.  Jesus, of course, did not such thing.  Even though he fully intended to conquer sin and death to set the spiritual captives free, he still did everything he could to help both the individuals who were suffering and to challenge society's injustices.
The Bible doesn't advocate a principle of minimalism regarding societal evil.  It doesn't consider these evils to be inevitable or beyond change.  The reality of human nature, fallen and in rebellion against God, guarantees that we cannot create an utopia on earth, but the impossibility of eliminating an evil entirely in no way diminishes our responsibility to mitigate it in our time and place.  While the Word of God calls for individuals, families, communities, and even whole nations to repent and turn to the Lord (i.e. to have changed hearts), it doesn't hit pause on the need for structural change until that day comes. 

Zechariah 7:8-14  New International Version
8 And the word of the Lord came again to Zechariah: 9 “This is what the Lord Almighty said: ‘Administer true justice; show mercy and compassion to one another. 10 Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the foreigner or the poor. Do not plot evil against each other.’
11 “But they refused to pay attention; stubbornly they turned their backs and covered their ears. 12 They made their hearts as hard as flint and would not listen to the law or to the words that the Lord Almighty had sent by his Spirit through the earlier prophets. So the Lord Almighty was very angry.
13 “‘When I called, they did not listen; so when they called, I would not listen,’ says the Lord Almighty. 14 ‘I scattered them with a whirlwind among all the nations, where they were strangers. The land they left behind them was so desolate that no one traveled through it. This is how they made the pleasant land desolate.’”

Does God care about societal justice?  God was willing to send his people, those with whom he had a Covenant, into exile because they weren't willing to change their hearts and minds, as evidenced by how they treated the widow, orphans, foreigners, and the poor.  Are we to understand that God would have told the Jews living prior to the exile to not bother fighting against injustices because their efforts were only 'a Band-Aid'?  Note also, the entire nation was sent into exile, including the righteous, because of the collective injustice (sin) of the people.  Surely God takes injustice seriously.  Here's the thing, America isn't in the place of privilege of Israel (Judah), we don't have a Covenant with God, which should make us less complacent about injustice in our society, for there is no promise from God to America that would ensure a return from exile should God, by way of administering his justice, choose to punish our nation.  God was willing to chastise his own children, can we expect to escape unscathed?

3. When will there be 'enough' Christians to confront racism in America? 

If America didn't have enough hearts trusting in Christ during the height of the Jim Crow era (when the vast majority of Americans were self-professed Christians), when exactly in the future is Pastor Jeffress suggesting it will be time to confront racism?  If America couldn't mitigate racism through the hearts and minds of individuals, alone, when 75%+ of those individuals claimed to follow Jesus, what percentage is required?  Clearly, the Church is not capable of eradicating racism, even within its own members, through solely spiritual means.  The shameful evidence of our past and present confirms this.  There needs to be an effort, in combination with, ongoing efforts to win souls to Christ  to address the legal and societal frameworks of systematic racism.  That some Christians are unwilling to consider this option, or even actively oppose it, calls into question how serious an evil they believe racism to be.
A parallel might help with understanding the situation.  Abortion has been legal in America since Roe vs. Wade.  Over the past few generations, Christians (and others) have worked continuously to shape hearts and minds on this issue, AND at the same time have opened hundreds of crisis pregnancy centers (We have one here in Franklin, ABC Life Center), have supported adoption agencies, fought battles over school sex education curriculum, put together lists of judges who are Pro Life, and have again and again advocated for and supported political candidates who promise to work to overturn Roe vs. Wade.  In the case of abortion, we are not told to wait until the day when Christ has changed enough hearts, but to fight on every front, to continue the fight year after year until the goal is achieved.  Why can't we wait until the demand for abortion ceases because Christ has changed hearts?  Because unborn lives matter. 
Perhaps you may have heard, Black Lives Matter too.  But with racism the answer is different.  Some say that racism isn't real, and even complain about reverse racism.  Others deny that racism is systemic, claiming that only 'bad apples' exist, and that every law and policy is already as it should be, that race isn't a factor in justice (again, some even going further, claiming society favors minorities above Whites).  Evidence to the contrary is belittled, treated as anecdotal only, or simply smeared with political epitaphs like 'socialism' or 'liberal'.  There is absolutely a different tone and attitude among millions of (mostly White) Christians (going by self-profession) when it comes to racism. 

4. You don't have to wait for the cure to fight against evil.

The COVID-19 pandemic has certainly taught us the need to take steps against it while we wait for a vaccine.  By the same logic employed by Pastor Jeffress, the only cure for COVID-19 is a vaccine, any efforts at social distancing, mask wearing, or therapeutic treatments being researched to keep those infected alive, are only a Band-Aid.  We have already lost 180,000 Americans, and rising, to COVID-19, imagine the death toll if we had taken no measures against it.

The Gospel's efforts to rescue hearts and minds from darkness have not made murder disappear, but it is still illegal, those who commit it are prosecuted, and a myriad of measures are in place to mitigate the risk that those willing to commit murder would be able to do so.  Likewise, after 9/11 we didn't wait to convince the Jihadists of the error of their ways, we took extraordinary safety measures, and took military action against terrorists and their supporters.

The ultimate, final, solution against any evil is the victory of Jesus Christ over sin and death.  What Christ has accomplished for us, and what Christ can do for anyone wiling to repent and believe, does not eliminate our responsibility to do our part to fight against evil.

I refuse to believe that we have to wait to fight against racism. 

Open Letter to White Christians: When it Comes to Racism, Changing Hearts Isn’t Biblical Enough - by Pastor Geoff Holsclaw

Systemic Racism: The casual racism of the phrase "Black on Black crime"

 I grew up in a county that was 95%+ white, I live today in a county that is 97% white, and yet, I have never heard anyone complain following a dramatic drug bust, armed robbery, rape, or murder about "White on White crime".  The same isn't true about the phrase, "Black on Black crime".  I've heard it many, many times, from casual use by white people I know, to pundits, provocateurs, and politicians.  When I was younger, and ignorant of the actual truth of the matter, I even used the phrase myself, and why not, everybody was saying that "Black on Black crime" was a particularly significant problem. Unfortunately for my past self, and for many people today, the concept of "Black on Black crime" being unique or particularly egregious comes not from crime statistics, but racism.
1. Most crime is committed against one own's racial/ethnic group.
Race and Hispanic Origin of Victims and Offenders 2012-2015 - Bureau of Justice Statistics, US Dept. of Justic
In 2014, 89% of Black murder victims were killed by Black offenders, 82% of White murder victims were killed by White offenders {55% for smaller minority groups, less likely to live in homogeneous neighborhoods, Indian, Asian, or Pacific Islanders} 2014 Crime in the United States report - F.B.I.
The Bureau of Justice Statistics' 2019 crime victimization statistics report shows those who commit violent acts tend to commit them against members of the same race as the offender.  Offenders were white in 62% of violent incidents committed against white victims, Black in 70% of incidents committed against Black victims and Hispanic in 45% of incidents committed against Hispanic victims, according to the BJS report. {Crime Victimization, 2018 - Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. Dept. of Justice}
Why do most violent crimes occur against one's own racial/ethnic group?  The answer is simple, most crime is committed within one's own social circle and/or within one's own neighborhood, which leads to the next point.
2. Most Americans (and most people worldwide) live in segregated neighborhoods.
The Racial Segregation of American Cities Was Anything But Accidental - By Katie Nodjimbadem, Smithsonian Magazine
"Despite these declines, residential segregation was still higher for African Americans than for the other groups across all measures. Hispanics or Latinos were generally the next most highly segregated, followed by Asians and Pacific Islanders, and then American Indians and Alaska Natives, across a majority of the measures." {2000 Census Report}
The data proves that school segregation is getting worse - by Alvin Chang, Vox.com

The short cartoon below on racism, segregation, and schools is very helpful in framing the issues.

The short video above explains how modern segregation came to be.

The reasons why America became a very segregated nation post WWII are clear and well documented, it was official Federal Government policy to encourage Whites to move to the suburbs and to ban Blacks and other minorities from joining them.  These policies had a lasting impact on minority communities still being felt to this day. {Redlining's legacy: Maps are gone, but the problem hasn't disappeared -by Kristopher J. Brooks, CBS News}  In addition to its affect upon crime statistics, segregated neighborhoods have had a massive impact upon public education.  In the wake of Brown vs. The Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, the idea of "separate but equal" school was no longer legal, but outlawing purposeful segregation in the schools hasn't made schools equal.  The majority of public schools are funded by property taxes in the neighborhoods in which they reside.  Thus segregation has also brought us poor urban schools, primarily minority, and relatively affluent suburban/rural schools, primarily White.

3. Black crime rates are comparable to White crime rates, incarceration rates are not.

The conclusions about the Criminal Justice System below are from the Sentencing Project's 2018 report, each claim has a footnote in the article for those wishing to judge the data for themselves.  While somewhat higher crime rates for Blacks and Latinos correlates well with higher poverty rates (Poor Whites commit crimes at higher rates than affluent ones, poverty rates are higher in minority communities), the disparities in how those crime are dealt with by the Justice System based on the race of the offender, cannot be ignored.
Report to the United Nations on Racial Disparities in the U.S. Criminal Justice System - The Sentencing Project
More than one in four people arrested for drug law violations in 2015 was black, although drug use rates do not differ substantially by race and ethnicity and drug users generally purchase drugs from people of the same race or ethnicity.  For example, the ACLU found that blacks were 3.7 times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than whites in 2010, even though their rate of marijuana usage was comparable.
African Americans were incarcerated in local jails at a rate 3.5 times that of non-Hispanic whites in 2016.
Pretrial detention has been shown to increase the odds of conviction, and people who are detained awaiting trial are also more likely to accept less favorable plea deals, to be sentenced to prison, and to receive longer sentences. Seventy percent of pretrial releases require money bond, an especially high hurdle for low-income defendants, who are disproportionately people of color.
Although African Americans and Latinos comprise 29% of the U.S. population, they make up 57% of the U.S. prison population. This results in imprisonment rates for African-American and Hispanic adults that are 5.9 and 3.1 times the rate for white adults, respectively—and at far higher levels in some states.
Of the 277,000 people imprisoned nationwide for a drug offense, over half (56%) are African American or Latino.
Nearly half (48%) of the 206,000 people serving life and “virtual life” prison sentences are African American and another 15% are Latino.
Prosecutors are more likely to charge people of color with crimes that carry heavier sentences than whites. Federal prosecutors, for example, are twice as likely to charge African Americans with offenses that carry a mandatory minimum sentence than similarly situated whites. State prosecutors are also more likely to charge black rather than similar white defendants under habitual offender laws.
Disenfranchisement patterns have also reflected the dramatic growth and disproportionate impact of criminal convictions. A record 6.1 million Americans were forbidden from voting because of their felony record in 2016, rising from 1.2 million in 1976. Felony disenfranchisement rates for voting-age African Americans reached 7.4% in 2016—four times the rate of non-African Americans (1.8%). In three states, more than one in five voting-age African Americans is disenfranchised: Florida, Kentucky, and Tennessee. The majority of disenfranchised Americans are living in their communities, having fully completed their sentences or remaining supervised while on probation or parole.
Read the whole report from the Sentencing Project, the picture it paints is bone chilling, as each of these statistics represents real people whose lives have been affected by the racial inequities in the American Criminal Justice System.  Also, look at the recommendations they make for addressing this disparity, they are, at the very least, worth consideration and discussion.
The video by Phil Vischer touches on the topics addressed here, and more, please watch both of them.

4. If your explanation crime statistics, or the wage and wealth gap in America between Black and White families involves characteristics inherent to Black DNA, Black intelligence, or Black culture, that is racism.
These are only 4 pieces of a large and complicated puzzle.  To understand the past and present of racial issues in America is no small task, to advocate for policies and laws that will help rather than hurt, likewise requires both a breadth and depth of understanding.  What we cannot sustain as a society, and especially as an American Church, is a continuation of racist attitudes that offer simplistic explanations of racial inferiority devoid of connection to reality.  To my fellow White American Christians: Stop pretending that it is 'their' problem and not our problem, stop blaming 'them' instead of looking to see how we can help. 
"There but for the grace of God, go I" was famously said in the 16th century by the Englishman John Bradford as he watched condemned prisoners being led to the gallows.  Bradford understood that Grace played a far more important role in the outcomes of our lives than we were willing to admit, that it is far less our merit that determines the road we travel than our pride would claim.  Human beings are the same, not matter what they look like on the outside.  If the shoe were on the other foot, if we were the minority facing a history of oppression and injustice and an ongoing legacy of discriminatory policies forcing us to walk uphill, how would we be any different?  To think our thoughts, attitudes, and actions would be different is not only to ignore human nature, but to indulge in racism.

Rejecting Idolatry: No, Mike Pence, we will not, "Fix our eyes on Old Glory"

Jesus and Old Glory are not interchangeable 

This post has nothing to do with who you should, or should not, vote for.  It has nothing to do with whether I like or don't like Mike Pence.  It has everything to do with the nature and future of the American Church and its proper relationship to its government.  Whether you are a liberal or a conservative, a socialist or a libertarian, this issue is the same: The Church and America are not one in the same.  They are not equal partners, they are not co-recipients of the New Covenant.  What we owe the Church, as Christians, is NOT the same as what we owe America, as citizens.  As Christians, our duty must always first be to our faith, to our calling as disciples of Jesus Christ.  If following that calling happens to coincide with our civic duty, we follow our faith, if following that calling conflicts with our civic duty, we follow our faith.

Vice President Mike Pence swapped out "Jesus" for "Old Glory" in his RNC address - by Relevant magazine

Mike Pence’s Heresy & the New Cult of Caesar - by Daniel Waugh

During his RNC speech, Vice President Mike Pence said the following, 

My fellow Americans, we are going through a time of testing. But if you look through the fog of these challenging times, you will see, our flag is still there today. That star-spangled banner still waves over the land of the free and the home of the brave. From these hallowed grounds, American patriots in generations gone by did their part to defend freedom. Now, it is our turn.

So let’s run the race marked out for us. Let’s fix our eyes on Old Glory and all she represents. Let’s fix our eyes on this land of heroes and let their courage inspire. And let’s fix our eyes on the author and perfecter of our faith and our freedom and never forget that where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. That means freedom always wins.

The text of Hebrews 12:1-2 and 2 Corinthians 3:17 is below for comparison.

Hebrews 12:1-2  (New International Version)  1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, 2 fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

2 Corinthians 3:16-18  (New International Version)  16 But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. 17 Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 18 And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate[a] the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.

So, what's the big deal?  Aren't biblical allusions and quotes a good thing?  Shakespeare is full of them, nobody's calling out Shakespeare for idolatry.  American politicians have long interwoven biblical references into their speeches, famously with Abraham Lincoln's A House Divided Against itself speech.   Biblical literacy is definitely a good thing, and great speeches can certainly utilize biblical quotations and allusions, great literature can utilize Christ typology (think Tolkien's Frodo or Rawling's Harry Potter) without stepping anywhere near idolatry or blasphemy.  What makes what Mike Pence said different?

Rather than allude to Hebrews 12:1-2, and say something like, "Just as Christians are commanded to fix their eyes upon Jesus, all Americans can look to our Constitution and Bill of Rights to find common ground", Pence replaced Jesus as the object that Americans must affix their eyes upon with Old Glory.  One is a perfect example to aspire to (by God's grace), the other is not; it can't be.  Instead of using Jesus as  the greater example of devotion to encourage the lesser devotion to our nation, the two were made out to be in some way equal.  As Christians, we are commanded to have Jesus (God) as the head and goal of our lives, as the standard for holiness and the sole recipient of worship.  To put anything else in the place of God, the place of devotion and worship, of inspiration and guidance, is idolatry.  Perhaps this is just sloppy speech writing, but the way in which Pastor Robert Jeffress rushed to defend it seems to indicate that the choice was deliberate.  If Jesus and Old Glory are interchangeable, if our devotion to them are in the same realm, we are lost as a Church. {Mike Pence faces backlash for replacing 'Jesus' with 'Old Glory' flag reference during RNC speech - Christian News}

Exodus 20:3-4  New International Version 3 “You shall have no other gods before me. 4 “You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below.

The Early Church was persecuted (sporadically but viciously) by the Roman Empire for (among other things) the refusal of Christians to say, "Caesar is Lord".  They believed, rightly, that only God could lay claim to the title of Lord.  That while they owed obedience to earthly authorities, they would only give worship to God, and God alone.  While some recanted and make sacrifices to Caesar in the face of persecution, for those who refused, their loyalty was undivided, and they paid for it, often with their lives. {Christianity and the Roman Empire By Dr Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe, BBC} From the reign of Constantine onward, Christianity moved from persecuted outside influence, to empire dominating force in the span of a few generations.  It became increasing difficult to separate being a good Roman citizen from being a good Christian.  This tension, between citizenship on earth and citizenship in heaven was a consistent them throughout the period we generally refer to as Christendom, where kingdoms and empires were ruled, ostensibly, by Christian principles with favor and reward shown to Christian institutions.  This marriage, however, of Church and State was not an equal one, nor healthy.  As Lord Acton famously put it, "Power tends to corrupt, absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely."  The power of the State allowed Christians to persecute dissenters, (some heretics, some earnest reformers, many innocent) but in doing so, the purity of the Gospel was corrupted, the appeal of God's Love replaced (or at least obscured) by Law and Justice.  The Church's response to heretics is excommunication, the State offered a tempting alternative, execution.

Christian Nationalism, has been, and continues to be, a significant danger to the Church.  That nationalism fueled the dueling claims of God's blessing as Europeans slaughtered each other during WWI, and it was co-opted to horrific effect by the Third Reich, leading to the flight of Bonhoeffer, Barth, and others to the Confessing Church, and the eventual martyrdom of Bonhoeffer.  The Nazis replaced the head of the German Lutheran Church with a Nazi party functionary, and sent the Gestapo to listen to ministers preach so that they could arrest any who spoke against the government, all while millions of 'good German Christians' cheered at Nazi parades.  To invoke the Nazis is no small rhetorical device, and I do so NOT to call Mike Pence a fascist, but simply to illustrate the fallibility of the Church, of how far the Church can fall from its original intent and purpose. This is also the logical end of Nationalism, the merging of Church INTO State, and the bending of the Church to the will of the State.  This is the dark side of Christendom.  The Church may think that it has the tiger by the tail, but it will always learn that it can't let go.  When being a good Christian is defined by what the government demands of its citizens, it is only a matter of time until those demands run contrary to the Word of God.  Perhaps the Christian Nationalism that is ascendant in American Evangelicalism today will remain moored to Bible principles, but if it does it will be the first such example {Calvin's Geneva, for example, couldn't maintain the union either, as the city burned a Christian heretic at the stake}, and there is every indication that devotion to God has already been compromised by the needs of power, wealth, and politics.  The Word of God says one thing, but the need to win the next election says something else.

A secondary fault of Mike Pence's position is its use of Replacement Theology.  To make a long story short, this view sees America (and the British Empire before it, where the view was similarly popular) as the New Israel, the heir to the Abrahamic Covenant's promises, unique and special in the eyes of God.  This common error is both an insult to the physical descendants of Abraham (a subtle form of Antisemitism), those to whom the promises were actually given; it also erroneously elevates America to a 'no-fault' position that obscures the real problems we face as a nation (like racism) behind veils like Manifest Destiny and American Exceptionalism.  If America is God's chosen nation, our faults must be minor.  This is, at the least, bad theology.  Bad theology is not idolatry, but it contributes here to the worldview that gives birth to it.

In the closing allusion, to 2 Corinthians 3:17, the Apostle Paul is speaking of our freedom from Law that we have because of the Grace of God that is in Christ Jesus.  Mike Pence swaps that out for American civic freedoms, a pale imitation of the true freedom that we enjoy because Christ has set us free.  The accomplishments of America in the realm of political freedom, and they certainly are historic and considerable, are nothing in comparison to the spiritual freedom from sin and death accomplished by Jesus Christ through his death and resurrection.  IF we turn from the greater freedom, in an effort to embrace the lesser, we will be great fools.  The Church's offers to the world freedom from sin, for all peoples regardless of nationality, the Bill of Rights cannot compete.  The last line, "That means freedom always wins." is certainly not what Paul was trying to say, not even remotely.  Political freedom won't always win, human oppression will continue to ebb and flow until the return of Jesus Christ and the establishment of His kingdom.  The only kind of freedom that "always wins" is the freedom purchased by the Blood of the Lamb.

In the "fog of these challenging times" Old Glory is not our guiding light, nor is it our anchor.  That may work for an appeal to American citizens, but coming from a professed Christian, using Scripture as a framework, it is heresy, a form of idolatry.  Our guide is the Bible, the author and perfecter of our faith is Jesus, ONLY Jesus, the witnesses which inspire us to live righteously are the heroes of the faith from Hebrews chapter 11 and the rest of Church History, whether or not they are American heroes.  The freedom that we cling to, that we have placed all of our hope and faith upon, is given to us by Jesus Christ, alone.

My message is not for Mike Pence, he's not an ordained minister, nor has he been chosen by the Church to a position of leadership.  My cry is to those in leadership within the Church of Jesus Christ.  Christ is our head, Christ is our hope, Christ is above all.  This Word of hope has been placed in our care, if we do not make this clear, if we do not reject the siren's call of Nationalism, the blurring together of Christian moral with American civic duty, and the foolishness of replacing the Covenant of Abraham with American Exceptionalism, who will?

Love America for its blessings, appreciate the flag and honor our country's heroes, but don't for a moment place country before God.

Let us fix our eyes on Jesus.