Come Down, Lord!

  In a recent series of Facebook posts Gerhard Visscher (former professor at the Canadian Reformed seminary in Hamilton) offered a critique of James Coates’ recent sermon on Romans 13.  Visscher worries that Coates’ sermon is “causing confusion” in their church community.  I assume he means the Canadian Reformed churches.  He writes, “I am not posting the sermon itself here because I do not wish to promote its content, which I find wanting… please be careful how you share it.”   Those are strong words.  Not “be a Berean and search the Scriptures to see if these things are so” not “here’s how the passage should be understood” but “be careful how you share it” and don’t listen to it yourself.     I won’t attempt here to respond to all that Visscher wrote.   Instead, I would like to address a couple significant problems with Visccher’s position as he articulated it.   First , he claims that it is an exaggeration to say that...

  I do not know Wyatt Graham, and until recently I had never heard of him. That is probably simply because I have never followed TGC.  More recently I have taken an interest in him because of his position on covid.  He represents the other side and I am one that likes to know what the other side is thinking.   Here I would like to respond to his recent article titled Our Views of the Virus Affects Our View of Persecution .  It is a gracious article, but the author is saying what he and others and TGC Canada have been saying for a while: that what James Coates, Jacob Reaume, Tim Stephens, Michael Thiessen, Aaron Rock, myself and others have experienced isn’t persecution.    The problem begins with the premise.  Graham says “If I view the pandemic as severely harming society and if I see restrictions as preventing that harm, then fining someone for breaking health regulations generally makes sense.”  He adds, “On the other hand, if ...

Someone recently commented on one my articles with these words: " Nobody is above the law.  Not even pastors."  She was responding to my comments about James Coates.   I found the comment very interesting.  And then a number of days later I saw someone suggest that since  Faith Presbyterian Church  didn't follow covid regulations we couldn't be trusted to lawfully handle other matters.    Fascinating logic... But, are we above the law?  I guess it depends on what is meant by the question.  The irony, of course, is that Christians are generally some of the most law abiding citizens in the country.  We are taught to obey our magistrates and pray for them.  The Bible is our rule of faith and practice, and we are told there by God to obey governing authorities. But of course every Christian knows the exception.  There is a higher authority .  It is God who told us to obey our magistrates, and so we obey the...