Abuse, the OPC, and the Psychologizing of Sin
Here is the real problem that I believe underlies the failure of those frequently using the term abuse to provide a clear, biblical definition: the preference of the term abuse dislocated from sin, moves abuse out of the moral and spiritual realm and into the psychological. In other words, it tends to shift the serious matters at hand from that which is properly clerical and refers them to the clinical.
Last summer I wrote an article voicing my concerns about a motion brought to the 87th General Assembly (GA) of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC). Now an overture related to abuse is on its way to the 88th GA this summer in Philadelphia (you can download a pdf version of the overture below). I will soon be interacting with the language of that overture in detail. Here I would like to explore the recent discussions about abuse and why we must not leave the term undefined, ill-defined, or without biblical qualification. I will also discuss one of the concerning trajectories for the church in its present approach to discussing abuse.
Importance of Definition
During the 87th GA last year, at least two commissioners asked some version of this vital question: “What is your definition of abuse?” No one provided a succinct, working definition. Why was this? Precise definition of terms is vital for a variety of reasons. When discussing important topics like this one, everyone needs to know precisely what is being talked about. In matters of righteousness and justice, there is no room for ambiguity. Clarity of definition is not terribly popular today, but this is nothing new. J. Gresham Machen wrote this in 1925, “Indeed nothing makes a man more unpopular in controversies of the present day than an insistence upon the definition of terms. Anything, it seems, may be forgiven more readily than that.”[1] How should we define abuse?
Should we use the UN’s definition? “Abuse is physical, sexual, emotional, economic, or psychological actions or threats of actions that influence another person.” According to this statement, abuse can be “emotional…actions…that influence another person.” This is a terrible definition because it is dangerously broad. The organization G.R.A.C.E. seems to indicate that an assessment for abuse would be warranted “if your organization has been notified that women do not feel comfortable in the culture and environment of your organization.” Is discomfort proof of abuse? While it could be, this is dangerously subjective. Diane Langberg, while teaching at a presbytery conference in the OPC in 2021 said in the question-and-answer session that, “the basic meaning of abuse is to mistreat somebody.” Will the OPC do any better? The overture coming to the 88th GA from the Presbytery of Ohio defines abuse as “misuse of power of various kinds.” We must do better.
Reconsider the statements above. Some use recklessly broad terminology and some inexcusably vague. Webster’s 1828 dictionary lists the following for the noun form. Abuse:
“Ill use; improper treatment or employment; application to a wrong purpose; as an abuse of our natural powers; an abuse of civil rights, or of religious privileges; abuse of advantages, etc; A corrupt practice or custom; Rude speech; reproachful language addressed to a person; contumely; reviling words; Seduction; Perversion of meaning; improper use or application; as an abuse of words.”
Left unqualified, abuse can be an exceedingly broad term. Consider this: by the above definition, overeating, losing your temper, a mean tweet, lying, adultery, murder, binge-watching Netflix, corrupt worship, and keying someone’s car all fall into the category of abuse.
To put it most broadly, all abuse is sin, and quite frankly, all sin is abuse in some way or another. But every fair-minded person knows that there are different kinds and severities of abuse. As such, all sins of abuse occur along a spectrum. It can range from relatively trivial (a mean tweet) to outright evil (murder/adultery). Frequently inserted to this discussion are categories including but not limited to emotional, physical, sexual, and spiritual (a topic for another day). In addition to different kinds, we can also identify different severity. For example, a spouse committing adultery is evil; a minister of the gospel committing adultery is far worse. For these reasons, not only does abuse need a clear definition, it ought not be a standalone term, especially in debates within the church. Instead, following the method of the Westminster Catechisms, abuse should be regarded as an aggravation of an underlying sin that renders it more heinous (WLC 151). [2]
With these matters of definition in mind, here is a most important question: by what standard can we determine the definition, kind, and severity of abuse? By what standard ought we to determine the correct response to various abuses? It must be the Word of God, for Scripture alone is the infallible standard for identifying, exposing, and dealing with sin. We must be biblical both in our definition and our method to account for the kind/severity spectrum of sins aggravated by abuse. Let us consider some passages of Scripture in search of a clearer understanding of the issue at hand.
Abuse in the Bible
Technically speaking Eve is the first culprit of abuse in Scripture when she misuses God’s Word in Genesis 3:2-3. Adam joins the ranks of abusers by way of neglect due to his silent abdication (Gen. 3:6). He then horribly mistreats his wife by offering her up to divine judgment in order to save his fig-leaf covered skin (Gen. 3:12). As covenant head, he was also responsible for plunging all humanity into an estate of sin and misery. As such, the sin of Adam became the source for all sin in human history, which makes it a kind that is extremely severe.
Judges 19:25 describes abuse of the most vicious kind and severity. This dark chapter describes unimaginable evil committed against a vulnerable woman. She was exposed to a perverse mob by a shameful, spineless man. Most English Bibles translate the original word aw-lal’ with abused, “And they knew her and abused her all night until morning; and when the day began to break, they let her go” (NKJV). I will return to this heinous event later. The other OT occurrences of this word with the closest usage are in 1 Samuel 31:4/1 Chron 10:4 (Saul not wanting to be abused by the Philistines), and Jeremiah 38:19 (Zedekiah wanting to avoid either mocking or mistreatment).
In these four texts, three of which use aw-lal’, the action under scrutiny is the misconduct by those in a position of influence with responsibility for their actions. While Eve was queen of creation, most importantly Adam was the head of natural humanity. The perverse mob in Judges was subject to the Law of God and had covenant responsibility to care for the stranger (Ex. 22:21, 23:9, see also Ezek. 16:49). Compounding the evil was the deplorable conduct of the Levite and the master of the house in Gibeah. For Saul and Zedekiah, they were both concerned about the serious maltreatment that would result from being handed over to reckless groups of sinners.
The New Testament twice uses the term katachraomai for abuse. In both occasions, the sense communicates the need to avoid the misuse of something given, whether material blessing in the world (1 Cor. 7:31) or apostolic authority/power (1 Cor. 9:18). The New Testament also describes the worst occasion of abuse that occurred in history, namely, the gross maltreatment and crucifixion of Jesus Christ. With respect to Him we find abuse reach its most egregious kind and severity: corrupt religious and civil authorities condemned the righteous Man; Jewish citizens mocked, spit upon, and beat Him (Luke 22:63-65); Roman soldiers scourged and crowned Him with thorns (John 19:1-2). To make it all worse, His disciples also forsook Him (Mark 14:50) and Peter denied Him (Luke 26:75).
How then should we define abuse? A friend of mine and fellow OPC minister offered this simple and helpful suggestion: the sin of abuse is “when someone intentionally uses his power to inflict serious harm upon another person.” This definition wisely includes the elements of purpose (intent), effect (serious harm), the victim (another person) and the aggravation of the breach/misuse of responsibility (power).
A Concerning Trajectory
In almost all the discussions about abuse that I have encountered, I have rarely heard mention of the Law of God. Here is an important question: under which commandment do sins of abuse rightly fall? Before reading further, I would like you to answer that in your mind. Most of the people to whom I have posed this question have referenced the sixth commandment, “You shall not murder.” It often tragically includes the seventh commandment, “You shall not commit adultery.” However, we must not overlook the relationship of this category of sin to the fifth commandment.
The fifth commandment establishes the framework in which all social ethics can and must occur. For life, purity, work/property, truth, and contentment to thrive, all must preserve the honor and perform the duty that belongs to everyone in their several places and relations, as superiors, inferiors, and equals (WSC 64). This is true for family, church, and society at large. Affirming that sins of abuse fall within the scope of things prohibited in the fifth commandment requires consideration of the categories of that commandment, namely, superiors, inferiors, and equals. This creates quite a dilemma for those seeking to deconstruct authority, especially within the family and church. Why? Because for the sin of abuse to be truly heinous—and it is—it requires a category of relational and positional inferiority/superiority (WLC 151). The trouble is that this is anathema in our egalitarian, feministic, and psychologized age.
There seems to be a movement in the church seeking to dislocate abuse from the category of sin. Why would anyone in the church want to do this? Perhaps it is because there is pressure, and there seems to be a lot of momentum, for the church to seek outside help related to sins of abuse. There are claims that the church does not know how to handle abuse (more on that in another article). Here is the real problem that I believe underlies the failure of those frequently using the term abuse to provide a clear, biblical definition: the preference of the term abuse dislocated from sin, moves abuse out of the moral and spiritual realm and into the psychological. In other words, it tends to shift the serious matters at hand from that which is properly clerical and refers them to the clinical. That is not to say that pastors and elders never need help. For example, when sins occur that are criminal (like sexual abuse of children), it is necessary to involve appropriate law enforcement. However, in matters that rightly fall under the spiritual realm and responsibility given to elders, Christ’s church needs to think more carefully before outsourcing to the local counseling clinic.
The church in this nation has sadly abdicated far too much in the last century. Education has been given over largely to the State. Care for the poor, widow, fatherless, and elderly has in large measure been usurped by the State. Will the church now hand over the care of the soul to “state licensed” psychologists and become subject to them? It will be a devastating and dangerous thing if the society of the redeemed makes itself subservient to an unaccountable panel of experts, especially if they are unbiblical.
In conclusion, let us revisit the egregious sin of abuse in Judges 19. What does God call it? In Hosea 9:7-9 He says, “The days of punishment have come; the days of recompense have come. Israel knows! The prophet is a fool, the spiritual man is insane, because of the greatness of your iniquity and great enmity. The watchman of Ephraim is with my God; but the prophet is a fowler’s snare in all his ways—enmity in the house of his God. They are deeply corrupted, as in the days of Gibeah. He will remember their iniquity; He will punish their sins” (emphasis mine). God called that abuse iniquity and sin because it is wrong before Him. Sin cannot be dealt with apart from the cross of Jesus Christ, the preaching and ministering of which God has committed not to psychologists, but to His church.
The trend toward psychologizing sin is a troubling one, certainly so if this is true of the OPC. Will the overture coming before the 88th General Assembly be a helpful corrective? I will examine that question in my next article.
Proposed Overture to the 88th GA of the OPC.pdfDownload
Mike Myers is a Minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church and is Pastor of Heritage OPC in Royston, Ga. This article is used with permission.
[1] J. Gresham Machen, What Is Faith? The Banner of Truth Trust, 13-14. This is very similar to a statement from J.C. Ryle in the opening sentence of Knots Untied, “It may be laid down as a rule, with tolerable confidence, that the absence of accurate definitions is the very life of religious controversy. If men would only define with precision the theological terms which they use, many disputes would die. Scores of excited disputants would discover that they do not really differ, and that their disputes have arisen from their own neglect of the great duty of explaining the meaning of words.”
[2] Q. 151. What are those aggravations that make some sins more heinous than others?
- Sins receive their aggravations,
- From the persons offending; if they be of riper age, greater experience or grace, eminent for profession, gifts, place, office, guides to others, and whose example is likely to be followed by others.
- From the parties offended: if immediately against God, his attributes, and worship; against Christ, and his grace; the Holy Spirit, his witness, and workings; against superiors, men of eminency, and such as we stand especially related and engaged unto; against any of the saints, particularly weak brethren, the souls of them, or any other, and the common good of all or many.
- From the nature and quality of the offence: if it be against the express letter of the law, break many commandments, contain in it many sins: if not only conceived in the heart, but breaks forth in words and actions, scandalize others, and admit of no reparation: if against means, mercies, judgments, light of nature, conviction of conscience, public or private admonition, censures of the church, civil punishments; and our prayers, purposes, promises, vows, covenants, and engagements to God or men: if done deliberately, willfully, presumptuously, impudently, boastingly, maliciously, frequently, obstinately, with delight, continuance, or relapsing after repentance.
- From circumstances of time, and place: if on the Lord’s day, or other times of divine worship; or immediately before or after these, or other helps to prevent or remedy such miscarriages: if in public, or in the presence of others, who are thereby likely to be provoked or defiled.
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Praying in Times of Trouble
Learning to pray when there’s an emergency or when something is frightening us requires a lot discipline. Instead of praying, we tend to torture ourselves with anxiety and worry. All we can think about is trying to get rid of the problem. The devil often tricks us when temptation or suffering first begins, whether we are dealing with spiritual or physical matters. He immediately barges in and makes us so upset about the problem that we become consumed by it. In this way, he tears us away from praying.
In our study of temptation for the believer it has become apparent that our major weapon in this battle is prayer. Jesus told us that we should pray as He showed us in what has become known as “The Lord’s Prayer.” It ends with this, “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” This is a cry to God that He not allow us to be drawn into temptation which is not the same thing as being tempted. In any case, God has given us this prayer as part of what we do in seeing as we become holy and separate from the world. God allows us to be stressed so that we will pray.
by Martin Luther
14 Then Hezekiah took the letter from the hand of the messengers and read it, and he went up to the house of the LORD and spread it out before the LORD. 15 Hezekiah prayed to the LORD saying, 16 “O LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, who is enthroned above the cherubim, You are the God, You alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth. Isaiah 37:14-16 (NASB)
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An Eschatology of Pentecost (End Times Series Part 26)
Fifty days later, in the same way God descended from heaven to dwell with His people in Sinai, God Himself descended again to dwell with the people of God at Pentecost. But unlike the Old Testament version, where the people needed to remain far off from God because of the finished work of Christ, the Holy Spirit of God would not remain distant but would live even within the heart of every believer. This was the chief end that the Festival of Weeks always pointed to: God living with His people forever.
Eschatological Blue Diamonds
All diamonds are beautiful and rare. They are formed as a collection of carbon atoms, subjected to unimaginable heat and pressure over the space of time, melding into one of nature’s greatest crystalline masterpieces that has ever captivated the eyes of man. Some diamonds, such as the standard white diamond, are easier to find, occurring nearer to the surface of the earth in the alluvial deposits and within volcanic pipes, which makes them more abundant and affordable in the market. Other diamonds, however, such as the elusive blue diamond, are buried much deeper within the earth’s strata, making them not only harder to extract but also rarer and more costly.
In the same way, every truth learned from Scripture is precious and essential. Some truths hang right on the surface of the text and do not take much digging to lodge them loose. Other truths, however, take a bit of digging. Yet, the reward for peeling back the layers of Scriptural strata is most definitely worth the reward for all who will venture into its depths.
This is a good way of thinking about our passage today. Many of you will be familiar with some truths on the surface. These truths are precious and glorious, and I do not want to minimize them. But, if you will grab your shovel and pickaxe, I’d like to take you down just a bit further, below the surface and into the eschatological crust of the text, as we hunt for the Biblical equivalent of blue diamonds.
The Text: Acts 2:1-12
1 When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place.2 And suddenly there came from heaven a noise like a violent rushing wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. 3 And there appeared to them tongues as of fire distributing themselves, and they rested on each one of them. 4 And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit was giving them utterance.5 Now there were Jews living in Jerusalem, devout men from every nation under heaven. 6 And when this sound occurred, the crowd came together, and were bewildered because each one of them was hearing them speak in his own language. 7 They were amazed and astonished, saying, “Why, are not all these who are speaking Galileans? 8 And how is it that we each hear them in our own language to which we were born? 9 Parthians and Medes and Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the districts of Libya around Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, 11 Cretans and Arabs—we hear them in our own tongues speaking of the mighty deeds of God.” 12 And they all continued in amazement and great perplexity, saying to one another, “What does this mean?”
To understand this text, let us first consider what eschatology is and how this text is eschatological.
Expanding Our Definition
As we covered last week, we are in a series on eschatology where we are working our way through the eschatological texts found throughout the New Testament, having found ourselves currently in Luke’s second book, called Acts. This will require stopping and staring at the various eschatological passages and building a coherent end-times theology from this great book. To do that, we will need a proper definition of what eschatology is.
First, eschatology is not merely about the final climactic moments of human history. That is a futurist’s perversion. Instead, eschatology is about what life will look like during the final age of man. Eschatology is about how the history of planet earth will be brought under the rule and dominion of Jesus Christ in these last days we are living in. That end-time age began when Jesus Christ rose from the dead and poured out His Spirit upon all flesh, which we will see in greater detail next week.
But for now, it is crucial to understand that everything within the old covenant, all of the promises of God, all of the types and shadows, will either pass away under the rule of Christ or will soar to its climax in the rule of Christ. In this way, eschatology has just as much to do with fulfilling the past as it does with the future. Thus, eschatology is trying to understand how all of the old forms and norms will find their ultimate realization and transformation in the new covenant that Christ has ushered in. To say that in shorthand: eschatology is how Christ ushers in His end-time Kingdom, now in part, one day in full.
To that end, let us explore a few examples, beginning with Pentecost.
Pentecost and the Festal Calendar
Pentecost comes from the Greek word πεντηκοστή, which means “the fiftieth” or “the fiftieth day,” referring to the fact that the miraculous outpouring of the Holy Spirit happened fifty days after the resurrection of Christ on Easter Sunday. Yet, the origins of Pentecost and the other key events during Holy Week run much deeper than the first century AD.
For instance, underneath the events of Good Friday, Easter, and Pentecost are buried Old Covenant feasts that directly and chronologically correlate with what Christ is doing. Take, for example, the festival called Passover. This feast was the first among the final three feasts in the Jewish year. During that feast, a lamb was slaughtered for the people’s sins, and its blood was painted on the doorpost of every home so that the angel of death would pass over them. As Christians, we look to Christ as the final and perfect Lamb, whose blood was painted over the mantle of our own hearts, causing the angel of death to pass us over so that we may inherit eternal life in the Son.
Likewise, underneath the events of Easter and Christ’s resurrection was a Jewish festival immediately following Passover called “First Fruits.” In that feast, the people would praise and worship God for the first sign of the harvest, that once more He had caused the seeds that went down into the earth dead to sprout and break through the ground again, symbolizing new life and resurrection from the dead. When Jesus rose from the dead, during the celebration of this festival, He was not only claiming to be God; He was fulfilling an Old Covenant rite with precision and beauty.
In the same way, underneath the events of Pentecost was an Old Covenant norm that must be explored if we are going to understand what God is doing in Acts 2. After the Passover and the festival of First Fruits, the Israelites hightail it out of Egypt and travel ferociously towards the Red Sea. After God’s final and glorious showdown with Pharoah, the Israelites continue to Sinai, where God leaves His throne in heaven and descends upon the mountain to dwell with His people. The journey from celebrating the First Fruits in Egypt to seeing Yahweh descend upon the mountain and deliver His law to Moses took exactly fifty days (Just like Pentecost).
To commemorate that arduous fifty-day journey, God established a feast called the Festival of Weeks (Shavuot in Hebrew), which would become one of the three mandatory pilgrimage festivals that all Jewish males were required to attend once a year in Jerusalem. Furthermore, within the ordinary annual calendar of the Jews, this feast was the last and final celebration of the year, spiritually symbolizing how God’s ultimate and final purpose in redemption was to condescend and draw His sojourning people into His presence forever.
This is why the timing of Pentecost in Acts chapter 2 is so rich and eschatologically significant. All of the events that happen during holy week and Pentecost track perfectly along with the Old Testament Festal calendar. This is not by accident or mere coincidence. God is purposefully taking His Son through each of the final feasts of Israel to show His people how His Son is the end and point that each of these feasts was pointing to.
In the same way, God rescued His people from the Pharaoh and their taskmasters in Egypt, Heaven’s spotless Lamb came and offered Himself during the final Passover, freeing the people of God from a far worse tyrant than Pharoah. In Christ, we have been set free from the wicked rule of Satan, the slavery of our own sinful flesh, and the bonds of death that once accosted us. He is the hope the Passover was always pointing to.
Immediately after Christ fulfilled the Passover, He fulfilled the feast of First Fruits, being the first fruit of a new creation, being the first to rise from the ground, breaking out of the earth like the first barley harvest the people were worshiping God for. In this, Christ (the bread of life) became the first one to rise in the new covenant Kingdom. And through His power, He is bringing all His people back to life and out of the grave until the entire harvest has come in. He is the hope the feast of Firstfruits was always pointing to.
Then, fifty days later, in the same way God descended from heaven to dwell with His people in Sinai, God Himself descended again to dwell with the people of God at Pentecost.
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Chapter 3: The Destruction of Faith and Freedom
Written by Andrew T. Walker |
Friday, October 21, 2022
We live in an age whose moral barbarisms eclipse what Schaeffer saw in his own day. Were he alive today, Schaeffer would not be shocked in the least. Instead, watching the wreckage of the world, he might say with tears, “You should have listened to me” (cf. Acts 27:21). Contemporary society is living proof of Schaeffer’s correctness, and we should not fail to listen to him now. It should not go unsaid that Schaeffer’s chapter ends with chastising those who should have seen what was happening in their respective disciplines and did nothing. So, too, shall we ask ourselves the question Schaeffer would ask of them: Do we see the rot before us?The famous political philosopher Leo Strauss once answered the question regarding what is a just political order “par excellence” as “how to reconcile order which is not oppression with freedom which is not license.”[1] All nations are still trying to determine the correct formula. Strauss was not a Christian, but his statement captures the same tension and dilemma described in chapter three of Francis Schaeffer’s A Christian Manifesto on “The Destruction of Faith and Freedom.”
Schaeffer’s chapter captures what political philosophers and public theologians alike refer to as the “theo-political question”: How does a society secure its future in perpetuity when varying degrees of religious, ideological, and moral diversity confront it? In other words, how much moral diversity can a society withstand before it collapses beneath the weight of relativism and moral subjectivism? What ultimate standard can serve as such a guide?
Some degree of moral consensus is necessary for a social order to persist, even if it is modest in scope. The question is how “thick” or “thin” such a consensus must be before the outer boundaries of social cohesion are stretched beyond their limits. Scripture teaches the same principle as well (Prov. 29:18). Society needs a shared moral horizon to offset the corresponding temptations of totalitarian rule by the state and autonomous rule by the subjective self. A just political order comprises neither too much liberty (license) nor too little liberty (oppression). Some Being, authority, force, order, or object must be present to shape that moral vision and measure the extremes of license and oppression. Schaeffer sees Scripture’s God as the only sustainable option given the reality of divine revelation. When God is denied, ignored, or treated as inconsequential, rival systems offering rival moralities contend for the space left vacant by God’s “absence.” The result is confusion—and one or many systems that are inimical to a rightfully-ordered society.
To make his argument, Schaeffer draws attention to three main areas where he sees the creep of secular humanism making inroads. All three areas converge at the point of making morality a product of human design, which subverts the long-term viability of moral cohesion, social order, and the principled basis of liberty.
Three Areas of Rising Secularism
First, Schaeffer identifies the legal landscape, which impacts the nature of power. Schaeffer sees law as having been emptied of anything resembling theistic natural law and having taken a turn toward “sociological law,” which rejects “higher law” (Divine Law). Whether knowingly or not, a culture that rejects the “higher law” will inexorably substitute something in its place, with the intended impact being that man-made authorities or ideologies, over time, are bent toward self-aggrandizement, thus reshuffling where the presumption of liberty resides. In a Christian worldview, the state is inherently limited. In a secular worldview, nothing inherently limits the state other than its own discretion.
Second, Schaeffer draws attention to the area of science, which impacts the existence of any sort of binding morality. An intelligent Creator has been exchanged for the blind forces of evolution and materialism. Again, because morality is collapsed into the material, nothing outside the observed world can impose any form of morality.
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