Written by David C. Innes |
Tuesday, August 20, 2024
Fathers have their job in the home. But they must also do their part as free citizens of a free republic, and keep your government limited to its proper sphere, limited to the good for which God gave it. What is that good? It is protecting the conditions for moral thriving, family thriving, wealth creation, as well as the happy life of Christ’s church and its advance. That is to say, it is protecting the moral environment (for each and for families), the opportunity economy, a church-positive society. Faithful government will protect the life of liberty, the life of a free people.

Note: This article was delivered as a speech at the 2023 ACCS Regional Conference at Bloomfield Christian School, Bloomfield, MI, October 7th, 2023
There is a crisis of fatherhood in this country. The U.S. has more children being raised by just one parent—23 percent—than any other country. The U.S. also has far-and-away the highest incarceration rate – 614 per 100,000. The United Kingdom has 147 and Canada only 109. Child Trends 2016 found that, for the country, between 1990 and 2016 out-of-wedlock births went from 28 to 40 percent of all births. There are communities where kids do not know what a father is. For them, “fathers” are the stuff of literature, and they do not read literature. However, in 2022, Pew Research reported 47 percent of U.S. adults say single women raising children on their own is generally bad for society, up seven points from 2018. Forty-three percent say it makes no difference. But ten percent of adults say it is good for society! 
These trends are not just bad for “society” – violent crime, economic drag, etc.; they are bad for the kingdom of God and for the democratic self-government of this free people. God made us for love and for community. How do we know this? We are made in the image of God. Not just any God, not some unitary monad, but the one Trinitarian God, Yahweh – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God – who is One God, not three – exists in three persons. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit love one another. The Father loves the Son and the Holy Spirit; the Son loves the Father and the Holy Spirit; the Holy Spirit loves the Father and the Son. Because of this, the Bible tells us not only that God loves, but that he “is love.” For this reason, we who are made in the image of this God are made for love. We are made for community with each other.
Some try to encourage young people by telling them, “You’re an individual,” as though this was the most important moral truth about them. Not so! Maybe the most important moral truth about you is not what is unique to you, but what you share in common with others! Of course, you’re a separate person. But it is noteworthy that each one of us came into this world through another person, out of another person, physically attached to that person, into and wholly dependent on a family of people. Properly speaking, we are creatures of love and community, born into love and community, for a life of love and community. That love and community is seen most perfectly in the church, the kingdom of God, the city not made with hands, whose ruler and builder is Christ.
But in this world, that spiritual community requires civil government. The Apostle Paul exhorts Timothy to pray for his government “that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way” (I Tim. 2:3). This governing can be done well or done badly. The best form of it—the form best designed to support people in a good life: their material, moral, and spiritual flourishing—is a democratic republic, a modern constitutional system of popular self-government. 
Fathers are key to this.
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This is the social justice gospel exposing itself openly, without modesty and without regard to how repulsive it is to the many other PCA members who believe in the spirituality of the church (Col. 3:1-3), the prudence of minding one’s own affairs rather than those of other communities (Prov. 26:17), and the propriety of an armed citizenry (Neh. 4:7-23). It has nothing to do with the duties of Cassidy’s office, not anything to do with our denomination or its faith: it is contemporary urban political preference presented as edifying Christian teaching, a coercion to agree masquerading as earnest Christian appeal.

David Cassidy is very animated about what he perceives as the insufficiency of our nation’s response to criminal homicides, particularly those which involve firearms. In an article at By Faith, the online magazine of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA), he inveighs against what he regards as a mistaken attitude about prayer, vehemently asserting that prayer which is unaccompanied by work is “presumptuous theism” and a far cry from the need of the moment, which is, on his view, the “diligent, bi-partisan work of elected officials and citizens ready to tackle the legion of issues that have created this plague” of gun-related crime. Pondering his claims, one might fancy that his feelings have gotten the better of his reason and led him into writing an article of which we might say, in the words of Proverbs 19:2, that “desire without knowledge is not good, and whoever makes haste with his feet misses his way.”
He makes some strange claims. He says that  “neither the individual Christian nor the elected official . . . can go on using prayer as a cover for inaction.” Yet the case which inspired his article, the Ralph Yarl shooting in Kansas City, Missouri, has not been attended by inaction: the shooter has been charged with felonious assault and if convicted will probably be imprisoned for the rest of his life. When Cassidy talks of inaction he must mean something else then, though he is short on particulars and speaks in generalities like this:
We must all start working for a safer society. It’s time to stop excusing our lack of progress in reducing mass shootings and work on creating and implementing the solutions that will foster a safer society for all. With the first responders, medical personnel, police, and all who in every way work to preserve life, let’s get on with the good work that needs to be done.
Elsewhere he says, “We can’t merely pray about a kid being gunned down for no reason other than he rang the wrong doorbell.” One wonders how it is that Cassidy knows that Ralph Yarl was shot because “he rang the wrong doorbell” when his accused assailant has not yet had a chance to present his side or to defend himself in court. To be sure, such information as is available suggests (key word) that this was a senseless act, but it is not just to tacitly assume that the media’s narrative of events is accurate, not least given its record for inaccuracy in reporting; and much less is it just to condemn a man in the court of public opinion before he has been tried in the court of law (comp. Jn. 7:51; Prov. 18:13, 17). “You shall not be partial in judgment. You shall hear the small and the great alike” (Deut. 1:17). By assuming the truth of the media’s narrative Cassidy is not being an impartial judge, nor is he hearing everyone alike.
Yet such claims pale in comparison to four others that Cassidy makes. He says that “elected officials in this country need a timeout on calls to prayer and should instead get to work on the problem of gun violence, the leading cause of death among children in this nation.” We do indeed need a “timeout on [politician’s] calls for prayer,” but not for the reason Cassidy suggests. We need such a thing because such displays savor of hypocrisy and receive our Lord’s explicit condemnation (Matt. 6:5-7) – a thing which Cassidy and By Faith seem to have elsewhere forgotten.
As for gun violence being “the leading cause of death among children,” this is factually false. Using CDC data on causes of death by age, available here, we see that in 2020, the last year available, homicide by any means fell in fourth place for deaths among minors, with 2,059, behind unintentional injuries (5,746), congenital anomalies (4,860), and short gestation (3,141). Even subtracting infants it is second in the 1 to 17 age group, being outnumbered by accidental deaths by a factor of 2.51 to 1. Going back farther or widening the time range pushes it farther down the list. In the 2010-2020 period Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), suicide, malignant neoplasms (cancer), and pregnancy complications all outnumbered it in number of deaths, and its ratio in relation to accidental deaths was 1 to 4.21. And of course not all homicides were conducted with firearms: in 2020 the 1,376 known firearm homicides similarly trail SIDS (1,389) and cancer (1,407) deaths. Such an enormous error of fact exposes not only Cassidy but also By Faith and its editors and, indeed, our whole denomination to ridicule, for they should have not allowed such a statement to be published, and it suggests that he and they do not understand this matter about which they feel so strongly.
Also, using the Census Bureau’s low estimates, there were about 74.4 million minors in 2020, meaning about 1 in 36,145 of them died of homicide that year. Hardly a crisis, yet it does not prevent Cassidy from saying that “our current situation is as hellish as it is unsustainable.” In fact, if one compares total homicides among minors in the 1981-1998 and 1999-2020 periods he will see that there were more homicides in the former (shorter) era, the first for which the CDC’s WISQARS provides data, and yet our nation did not collapse and has seen its population increase from about 229 million in 1981 to about 330 million in 2020. The vast majority of minors have made it to adulthood, in other words, which means that Cassidy’s talk about the situation being “unsustainable” is nothing more than grossly exaggerated and irresponsible rhetoric.
In addition, we might object to his rhetoric on the ground that no man should make light of hell, least of all a minister of the gospel. Such language is far beneath his office, and is vulgar and implicitly impious: for unlike our society, hell is a place of perfect justice, a place where sin is punished as it deserves, not one where it runs amok. The misery of hell is a deserved misery inflicted by God’s holy wrath and resulting from his retributive justice, not an inexplicable, woe-inducing misery that results from human sin such as is bewailed by psalmists and prophets.
For one to speak of our earthly crime situation as “hellish” when what is meant seems to mean simply “miserable” is to misuse the word and to distort the concept in the popular understanding, which is a serious fault in a churchman. This nation is not hell, and we should not be quick to compare it to that dreadful place of eternal perdition, even in flights of impassioned literary rhetoric. No one who is truly impressed by the awful nature of hell can so easily use it to describe social affairs, even displeasing ones like youth homicides, yet Cassidy did not hesitate to do so, to our shame.
His statement here is an example of that profane speech which our shorter catechism condemns in Question 55 when it says that, “The third commandment forbiddeth all profaning or abusing of anything whereby God maketh himself known.” Who can deny that hell is a means whereby God has revealed himself to us as the God who judges the earth in righteousness? And yet Cassidy uses the term, not to call men to repentance, as our Lord would have him to do (Lk. 12:4-5), but to call for political reform, and that in terms so vague as to be practically useless. I tell you, my dear reader, as a man of unclean lips who dwells among a people of unclean lips (Isa. 6:5), and as a man who has said similar and worse things and is trying to repent the evil habit, that such a thing is a great evil and a cheapening of the gospel of which Cassidy has been ordained a minister. Speaking of our crime situation as “hellish” does not bring me around to his view on that matter; but it does make me think, given the statistics above, that perhaps hell is not such a terrible place after all, seeing as Cassidy can use it, not to warn me of its terrors, but rather as a comment about affairs in this life. To profane a thing is to convert it from a sacred use to a common one, and Cassidy has done it here with hell, by taking it from a solemn ground for urging men to convert to Christ in faith to a mere bit of angry rhetoric about our domestic affairs.
That is a serious thing, and it is worse still that a foul-tongued sinner such as myself, whose sins of the tongue are so frequent that he often doubts his union with Christ on that account (Matt. 12:34-27; Jas.1:26), can yet angrily say, as I do now: ‘I may be lost, and my sins of speech may burn brighter than anything James could suggest in his epistle (Jas. 3:5-12); yet even this vile sinner can see that Cassidy’s speech is profane and tends rather to men’s harm than their edification.’ And if, as is more frequent still, I think the grace of God is greater than my own sin, then we are in the territory of ‘causing little ones to stumble’ (Matt. 18:6), and the offense is scarcely less. Either way I object, as a repentant blasphemer, to Cassidy’s language – for I understand that if I am to be saved from such sin it can only occur in a church whose ministers are characterized by holiness of speech and who would never dare profane such a dreadful doctrine as that of hell by using it as mere political rhetoric.
Lastly, Cassidy says that, “Now is the time to work on curtailing the violence and ending this insanity — that’s authentic holiness in action.” Mark that well reader: for Cassidy “authentic holiness in action” is found in political activism. Not in personal righteousness in one’s dealings with other people (Lev. 19:35-36; Deut. 25:13-16; Prov. 11:1; Am. 8:4-7, Mic. 6:8, 10-12), nor conformity to the image of Christ (Rom. 12:1; 2 Cor. 7:1; 1 Thess. 4:2-7; 2 Tim. 1:9; 1 Pet. 1:15-16), but rather in agitating for legislative change. The New Testament says that we are to aspire to live quiet lives (1 Thess. 4:11) and Christ himself refused to judge in temporal questions (Lk. 12:13-14), said his kingdom was not of this world (Jn. 18:36), and avoided the popular movement to give him earthly power (Jn. 6:15), yet Cassidy would have us believe that we are under a moral and spiritual obligation to engage in political activism, conducted, no doubt, along his preferred lines.
Let me be clear that this ought to be a scandal. The PCA’s ministers should not use her magazine to push political propaganda dressed up in Christian garb which is long on emotional rhetoric and at odds with the facts about the crimes which it purportedly wishes to solve. This is the social justice gospel exposing itself openly, without modesty and without regard to how repulsive it is to the many other PCA members who believe in the spirituality of the church (Col. 3:1-3), the prudence of minding one’s own affairs rather than those of other communities (Prov. 26:17), and the propriety of an armed citizenry (Neh. 4:7-23). It has nothing to do with the duties of Cassidy’s office, not anything to do with our denomination or its faith: it is contemporary urban political preference presented as edifying Christian teaching, a coercion to agree masquerading as earnest Christian appeal. And while I think believers can disagree about most questions of domestic politics, I also think we should be able to agree that we should do so as citizens and in the proper (civil) forums, not as church officers or members or in official church publications.
Tom Hervey is a member of Woodruff Road Presbyterian Church, Five Forks (Simpsonville), SC. The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not of necessity reflect those of his church or its leadership or other members. He welcomes comments at the email address provided with his name.
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The love that welcomed me seventeen years ago, lowered my guard, and prepared my heart to receive the gospel, has done the same thing to many others over the years. It’s the love of God in his people—a surprising love to those without hope and without God—and it still draws the lost to their Savior today.

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.
 – John 13:34–35

As I sat on a hard wooden pew in a tiny church listening to the preacher, my heart raced and beads of sweat covered my forehead. I blushed as I looked to and fro like a trapped rabbit before a hound dog, afraid to be seen if I moved, but filled with a panicked desire to flee. Even in my guilt and shame, my ears and eyes fixated on the pastor as every word he spoke resonated with and pierced my soul. The sermon centered on a woman who found faith and mercy, forgiveness and grace—words I had never heard before. She should have been ashamed, instead she openly and freely worshiped her Savior as she wiped Jesus’s feet with her hair and tears. I felt as if I were the only one in the room. It seemed the pastor spoke directly to me as one who knew my thoughts and feelings. Could he know? I twisted my feet in restless angst, wishing I were invisible. Yet I hung on every word, drawn to them like a magnet. The wrestling match within my soul ceased with a quiet solitary prayer for forgiveness and mercy. That was the day the Holy Spirit melted my rock-hard heart and redeemed me—the day I found true peace.
The town I live in is a small community in a rural Canadian province. By small and rural, I mean population: 700. We live a one-hour drive from the nearest city. The “big city” here is as populous as most people would describe a small town. Because of its size and location, many would think this community is insignificant, but it has proven not too small for God to do his mighty work. This little town was the last place I thought I would find the Lord—not that I even looked for him.
I didn’t look because I didn’t need him. Life was just grand, you know. I had it all—a husband who was my high-school sweetheart, best friend, and co-laborer in raising our two responsible pre-teen children. We both worked decent jobs which provided all that we could ask for including the standard two cars, a nice house with a view, and so much more. Somehow though emptiness and hopelessness still gnawed on my fearful soul.
The Lord often draws a lost person by the most unusual means. In my case, he used a guitar-teacher-turned-small-town-gospel-preacher. This former musician had just moved to our community to plant a new church, of which I cared little about. Church was for religious people, and I was not one of them. My son began taking guitar lessons with him, and he often came home with invitations to various church events. I grew curious yet resisted.
I met many from the church, each time captivated by their sincere love.
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