Bill Peacock

Yahweh Miśrâh: Christ, the Lord of Politics

To help us depend on Him, God gave us self-governance, or self-control (Proverbs 25:28). He also gave us three external forms of government: family government, church government, and civil government. Each operates in its own sphere, though each sphere overlaps with the others. In the case of “caregiving,” the family government, not civil government, is the primary care giver. It is what we might think of as the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare.

A proposal being debated in my church and denomination (the Presbyterian Church in America) would insert language into our Book of Church Order (BCO) that says, “Men who describe themselves as homosexual, even those who describe themselves as homosexual and claim to practice celibacy by refraining from homosexual conduct, are disqualified from holding office.”
A friend of mine, during a recent conversation on this issue, said that the proposed statement was “political” and did not belong in the BCO.
I know my friend did not mean that homosexuality is only a political issue that has nothing to with faith. I took him to mean instead that the focus of some people in our denomination on those who are gay and celibate has moved beyond faith to politics.
His statement reflects a sentiment popular among some Christians today that evangelical Christians, especially white evangelicals, have politicized the Christian faith.
In an interview with Vox last year, David French said, “Any time you’re going to tie faith to ideas and people who do not either personify biblical ethics or positioned to flow from biblical ethics, you’re creating a real problem. They’ve essentially politicized their faith.”
Notice how carefully French constructs his statement. He has positioned himself so that if he finds a Christian who supports a politician French believes does not “personify biblical ethics,” perhaps Donald Trump?, he can easily claim his opponent has politicized his faith. Likewise, if a Christian takes a position on public policy that French and company do not think “flow[s] from biblical ethics,” French can readily dismiss it as political, not based in faith.
Let’s consider this in the context of an example from Scripture. On a recent American Vision podcast, Gary DeMar mentioned that the dispensational Christian author Dave Hunt complained that John the Baptist cut short a promising ministry by getting involved in politics. What did John do wrong? He pestered Herod about his sin of taking his brother’s wife as his own wife. According to Hunt, John’s politicization of marriage interfered with the purpose and promise of his ministry.
I provide this background because I want to talk about Stacey Abrams, the race baiting progressive gubernatorial candidate in Georgia, from the perspective of biblical ethics. Abrams wants to expand welfare programs for Georgians with disabilities so that more of them are able to live “independently.”
My take on Abrams is what she really wants is not to improve the life of the disabled but a larger, more intrusive government that can be used to destroy what’s left in America of a Christian perspective on government and family.
Yet quite a few evangelicals today would claim my position on this issue is political, not scriptural. That because my ideas do not flow from biblical ethics, I have politicized them. So, I will lay them out here and let you decide.
I ran across Abrams’ focus on disability in the 19th, an online news site which identifies as “an independent, nonprofit newsroom reporting on gender, politics and policy.” It particularly promotes feminism and homosexuality.
The article about Abrams was written by the 19th’s “caregiving reporter.” This in itself tells us something about the progressive agenda. With reporting focusing on the lack of government-supplied caregiving, the implication is that caregiving is only compassionately caring for those in need when it is supplied by the government. This bias shows up clearly in the first paragraph of the Abrams’ story.
Martha Haythorn, 22, has Down syndrome and gets help from her mother with everyday tasks like grocery shopping, meal planning and getting around. The Georgia Institute of Technology student would love to be living independently, but she’s been on a waitlist to receive in-home support services from the state of Georgia for six years — with no end in sight.
We can learn an awful lot from this paragraph if we approach it from a logical and biblical perspective. So let’s do that.
First, let’s focus on logic. The problem described here is that Martha can’t live independently because without these in-home support services she has to do depend on her mother. I looked up what some of these services are. They include:
The staff will assist in acquiring, retaining, and improving skills such as bathing, dressing, chores, walking or moving around and planning or cooking meals. We will even help find ways to get you where you need to go and help you get involved with things you like, such as recreational activities, access to food, making your own schedules and having visitors.
Do you see the problem here? The complaint is that Martha can’t live independently because she has to “get help from her mother with everyday tasks like grocery shopping, meal planning and getting around.”
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PCA Members Should Speak Out on Overture 15

One action our denomination can take now is by making it clear to the world, our presbyteries, and our churches through Overture 15 that men who define themselves as homosexual cannot be elders in our denomination. Perhaps even more important is that we make this strong statement to our members, church courts, the world, and those struggling with same-sex attraction in our governing documents so that it is clear that Side B homosexuality is sinful and must be repented of.

I attend a church in the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA). The PCA is one of the more “conservative,” or biblically sound, denominations in the United States. Yet over the last 25 years the woke progressive movement has been making inroads into the PCA like it has in many other denominations. These inroads have been made on biblical doctrines such as those related to the days of creations, race, and egalitarianism.
The most recent assault on God’s Word in the PCA is on the issue of homosexuality. Particularly what is known as Side B homosexuality, the idea that it is okay to be a “Gay Christian” with same-sex attraction as long as one remains celibate. Now, I welcome all same-sex attracted men and women to church, including those who are attempting to remain celibate. I do so because they, like me, need to repent of their sin. And unless they come to church, they are unlikely to hear that both same-sex sex and same-sex attraction are unholy and sinful in God’s eyes and something of which they need to repent.
Sadly, in the PCA there is a movement which proclaims that same-sex attraction is not a sin if accompanied by celibacy, that men and women can live their lives as Gay Christians. To address this and to speak to the culture around us, the PCA has adopted a number of “overtures,” or resolutions, at our recent annual gatherings (General Assembly–GA). The same is true this year; several of the overtures relating to homosexuality this year (Overtures 8, 15, and 29) would amend the PCA’s Book of Church Order (BCO), one of our governing documents. To be included in the BCO, each must be also ratified by ⅔ of our presbyteries, then go back for one more vote at GA next year.
I want to focus on one of those overtures here: Overture 15. It would insert the following into Chapter 7 of the BCO:
7-4. Men who describe themselves as homosexual, even those who describe themselves as homosexual and claim to practice celibacy by refraining from homosexual conduct, are disqualified from holding office in the Presbyterian Church in America.
Overture 15 highlights one problem currently facing the PCA; the committees and agencies of the PCA don’t always reflect the beliefs of the majority of elders and members in the PCA. It was rejected by the GA’s Overtures Committee, but resurrected on the floor of GA and passed by a majority of elders.
One reason why a majority of our elders approved this is because the PCA has at least one elder (and perhaps more) who describes himself as gay and same-sex attracted. And because during the several years this has been an issue, the presbytery this man belongs to has refused to remove him from office. And because the highest court in the PCA, the GA’s Standing Judicial Committee, has ruled against one attempt that might lead to his removal. And because, more generally, the PCA has dealt poorly with the Side B Gay movement in our denomination and the culture over the last five years.
The vote to approve the language in Overture 15 for inclusion in the BCO was very narrow: it passed with only 51% of the votes, 1094-1044, (a second vote approved Overture 15 with 54%). Because of the narrowness of the vote, many people predict that Overture 15 will not receive the ⅔ majority of the presbyteries needed to become part of the BCO. Elders from my presbytery, the South Texas Presbytery, will vote on Overtures 8, 15, and 29 on October 29. A few other presbyteries have already voted, while the rest will be voting fairly soon. You can follow the votes of presbyteries on this and other overtures here.
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Will Trump Be Indicted? Why Christians Should Care

The four-decade effort by the secular left to undermine the integrity of our elections and constitutional order is nothing less than an attempt to remove the biblical foundations of our government and culture in order to create a centralized, tyrannical government untethered from God which will be a terror to good conduct rather than bad (Romans 13).

When you go out to war against your enemies, and see horses and chariots and an army larger than your own, you shall not be afraid of them, for the LORD your God is with you.—Deuteronomy 20:1
Christians’ ability to speak and live out the Word of God is under assault from the secular, progressive left. They seek to remove any trace of God or His people from the culture.
The ongoing assault against President Trump is part of this. In order to understand why this is the case–and why Christians should be concerned, let us take a look at what the left has done to Trump in light of attacks on other Republican presidents before him.
The week before the raid on Trump’s home, George Parry published an article in the American Spectator, “The Democrats’ Looming Trial and Conviction of Donald Trump.” In it, he wrote:
“We intend to hold everyone, anyone who was criminally responsible for the events surrounding January 6, for any attempt to interfere with the lawful transfer of power from one administration to another, accountable,” said Garland.
Who’s he kidding? Garland made it sound as if there is a chance that Trump might not be arrested and prosecuted. But, to anyone who has been paying attention, the intention of the Democrat-controlled federal government has always been and remains to be the legalized destruction of Donald Trump. It is, in fact, the whole purpose behind the illegally constituted Jan. 6 committee’s Soviet–style show trial, its contempt citations of Trump administration officials, and the follow-up supporting criminal cases by the FBI and Justice Department.
The Soviet–style show trial and previous efforts to remove Trump from office come from the same playbook Democrats have been using against Republicans for decades. It started at least as far back as Watergate, when Democrats took illegal activities by some Nixon aides–who acted without Nixon’s knowledge–and managed to parley that into overturning the results of a presidential election in which Nixon won 97% of the electoral vote. They twisted and distorted the evidence so badly that even Nixon thought that he had engaged in a coverup. But he had not. Nixon had his faults, but he broke no laws and committed no high crimes or misdemeanors. Yet Nixon was forced to leave, and progressives had the run of the federal government for the next six years.
The Democrats took this route twice with President Reagan. First, it was the October Surprise conspiracy theory, where Democrats concocted a story that vice presidential candidate George Bush travelled to Paris in October on a U.S. government SR-71 spy plane to convince the Iranians not to release their American hostages captured during the attack on the American Embassy until after the November 1980 presidential election. Congress finally rejected the theory–in 1992.
Next were the 1987 Iran-Contra hearings, based on largely unconstitutional attempts by Congress to control the president’s ability to conduct foreign policy. These hearings failed to overturn the 1984 Reagan landslide over Walter Mondale, but hamstrung his final two years in office and were perfectly timed to affect Vice President Bush’s prospects for being elected president.
After Bush overcame Iran-Contra and was elected, the October Surprise hoax was revived. It received substantial coverage in the mainstream press, to the point that a January 1992 poll showed 55 percent of Americans believed the allegations. Bush created many of his own problems, especially lying to the American people when he promised, “Read my lips. No new taxes” during his 1988 campaign, but the propagation of the hoax likely had an effect on his loss to Bill Clinton in the 1992 election.
Bush’s son George W. also was the target of Democrats seeking to overturn presidential election results. This time, it was U.S. Rep Dennis Kucinich, joined by 11 cosponsors, who filed articles of impeachment because of what they claimed were lies regarding weapons of mass destruction as a pretext for America’s invasion of Iraq. I do not think we should have invaded Iraq, but neither do I believe that Bush manufactured false evidence to push us into another war. Yet Democrats still tried to overturn his election through the impeachment process. As well as hamstring his administration through the bogus Valerie Plame Wilson investigation.
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