It is the Lord himself who determines who belongs. It is he who sets people in families and it is he who adopts into his family. That means we don’t get to choose who belongs, we don’t get to decide who we are and aren’t going to love and we don’t get to determine who can belong and how it will function. These things belong to Jesus. 

A little while ago, a blog post did the rounds insisting that we should stop saying church is a family and that this is unbiblical. A fair few people responded with an upturned eyebrow and a, ‘huh?’ Amongst them, I did here. I am pretty sure church is meant to be family and the Bible very much refers to the church in familial terms.
One of the many ways church is like a family is that you don’t get to choose who belongs to it. I never asked to have the particular brother and sister that I do. I just arrived and found one of them there already and the other one joined us later. I had no say in the matter. Nor, it turns out, do you get to choose the kind of people in your family either. We have some shared traits, but we’re also quite different people too. It’s entirely possible we might never have become friends had we met some other way but we weren’t related (obviously, both my siblings are privileged to know me…)
The church, a bit like that, is called to be a family. We aren’t supposed to have any specific say in who joins us; we ultimately get the people God has decided to make show up. Nor are we called to only reach one particular kind of people. I am on record on this blog – I don’t think homogenous unit principle churches are a great expression of the manifold wisdom of God in the gospel which specifically removes such barriers and distinctions. I do not think it is legitimate for churches to insist that they are only for or will only reach one kind of person. The church is a family, created by God, that doesn’t get to choose who belongs. Only Jesus gets to do that and only he gets to set what criteria exists to join.
One of the beauties of the church is when we are drawn from many different tribes, tongues and nations, and express our differing cultures in the life of the church and yet all belong together as one people. It is manifestly a manifestation of the gospel when we see such different people welcomed into the same family, all belonging together on the same terms and all in community together that is not centred on personalities or preferences or culture or anything other than the saving gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. We don’t get together because we have some shared affinity; we get together because we belong to the same family even though we are drawn from as varied a range of backgrounds as you can imagine.
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Written by John G. West |
Friday, March 10, 2023
COVID has shown government officials how to do an end-run around the normal system of checks and balances. They simply need to invoke “science” and declare an emergency — and then extend their emergency orders time and again. Anyone who dares challenge the emergency orders will be stigmatized as “anti-science,” or they will be told they aren’t scientists so they have no right to be heard. Regardless of your view of specific anti-COVID policies, policymaking during the pandemic has set a terrible precedent for the future. 

In 2007, I published Darwin Day in America, a critical history of social Darwinism in the United States and, more broadly, an exploration of the abuse of science in American public policy in the last century-and-a-half. In 2015, I wrote a new chapter for the paperback edition, highlighting a worrisome trend. I warned:
Our culture is witnessing the rise of what could be called totalitarian science — science so totalistic in its outlook that its defenders claim the right to remake every sphere of human life, from public policy and education to ethics and religion. PP. 385-386
Some predictions you don’t want to turn out to be true. Unfortunately, in my view we’ve gone pretty far down the path toward totalitarian science during the past two years.
I understand some readers may find this statement offensive. We have many different views about COVID-19 and the public policies designed to combat it. Our views are affected both by our understanding of the facts and by our own experiences. If someone you loved died from COVID-19, that tragedy will affect your view of the pandemic. If you or someone you love has been injured by a COVID-19 vaccine, that experience will influence you as well. If your small business or job did not survive the pandemic, ditto. Because of the pandemic’s deeply personal costs, it can be painful to engage in a candid discussion of the changes COVID-19 policies have wrought on our society.
Yet such a discussion is long overdue. Evolution News and Science Today focuses primarily on the scientific, philosophical, and metaphysical debates over Darwinian evolution and intelligent design. But from the start, the impact of “scientism” on public policy, freedom of speech, and human dignity have been central to our mission as well. For the past two years, we’ve largely refrained from wading into the debates over COVID-19. In part this was because it was hard to weigh in on debates when the facts were so unclear. But it also was because the issue was so polarizing.
Now, after two years, facts are becoming clearer — and so are the momentous consequences of the pandemic for our culture. Those consequences are so serious that they can’t be ignored. That’s why from here on you can expect more coverage at Evolution News of the societal challenges raised by scientism during the COVID era. In this article, let me highlight just three.
1. The Dangerous Expansion of Government Power in the Name of Science
COVID-19 has been used as the rationale for an extraordinary expansion of government power in the name of science: lengthy “lockdowns” of businesses and churches, vaccination mandates, government-imposed discrimination against people based on their medical choices, government-encouraged censorship of dissenting scientific views, and more. Perhaps you support some of these policies as necessary. Perhaps you don’t. But even if you support each and every one of the policies adopted, you ought to be concerned by how they have been imposed. Almost none of the policies were enacted by legislative bodies after an open public debate. Almost all of the policies were enacted unilaterally by executive branch officials asserting emergency powers or by unelected public health officials immune from public accountability.
COVID has shown government officials how to do an end-run around the normal system of checks and balances. They simply need to invoke “science” and declare an emergency — and then extend their emergency orders time and again. Anyone who dares challenge the emergency orders will be stigmatized as “anti-science,” or they will be told they aren’t scientists so they have no right to be heard. Regardless of your view of specific anti-COVID policies, policymaking during the pandemic has set a terrible precedent for the future.
The genie of unaccountable government power in the name of science has been let out of the bottle. Will we be able to put it back in?
2. The Dramatic Rise of Censorship in the Name of Science
The COVID era also has seen a dramatic rise of censorship in the name of science. We are told continuously now that “misinformation” or “disinformation” must be stopped. No decent person favors the spread of “misinformation.” But who is to judge what constitutes “misinformation”? Those warning of “misinformation” seem to assume that existing elites are always right, and so they should be in charge of determining what is true or false. But anyone conversant with the history of science or government knows that this claim can’t hold up to scrutiny. Neither elite scientists nor government officials have a monopoly on the truth. Truth often arises from dissenters. That’s why we have free speech in the first place.
We are also told that allowing free speech about COVID and related policies is too dangerous to permit. But the claim that speech is too dangerous to permit is always the go-to argument for totalitarians. If they had their way, we wouldn’t have free speech about anything.
Yes, there is misinformation in public discussions of COVID and many other topics. Some of it comes from private parties. Some of it comes from government officials. But the way to combat such misinformation is by adding speech, not suppressing it. As John Milton wrote in his famous defense of free speech, we are wrong to restrict free speech because we “misdoubt” the strength of truth in open debate. “Let her [Truth] and Falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worse, in a free and open encounter?”
Unfortunately, instead of defending free speech, we are seeing increased demands for the censorship of disfavored speech in the name of science. Arguments for science censorship have been made before about Darwinian evolution and climate change. But COVID-19 has raised the lobbying for suppression to a whole new level. The President and the Surgeon General are now actively pressuring journalists and tech companies to censor messages disfavored by the government. Taxpayer-funded NPR has all but urged medical licensing boards to strip medical licenses from doctors who offer dissenting opinions about COVID and its treatments. According to the Washington Post, the former head of the NIH, Francis Collins, believes we should “identify those who are purposefully spreading false information online and bring them to justice.”
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We should not expect to have pleasant, easy, and comfortable lives through faith, and suffering is not a sign of little faith. Indeed, to be like our Lord, we are called to take up our cross and follow Him. But in so doing, we ought to rejoice because just as Christ triumphed through the cross so now does He lead His church to triumph through suffering.

And what more shall I say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets—who through faith conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, were made strong out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight. Women received back their dead by resurrection. Some were tortured, refusing to accept release, so that they might rise again to a better life. Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword. They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated—of whom the world was not worthy—wandering about in deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.
And all these, though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had provided something better for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect.
Hebrews 11:32-40 ESV

As we come to the conclusion of Hebrews 11 and its marvelous survey of the Old Testament saints who lived and died by faith, we ought to once again ground ourselves in context. Again, the key verse of chapter 11 is actually found at the end of chapter 10, where after citing Habakkuk 2:3-4, the author exhorts: “But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls” (10:39). Chapters 3-4 already gave us an example of those who shrank back in fear and were destroyed. The exodus generation of Israelites rebelled against the Yahweh, who proved His might and provision to them over and over again, because they were afraid of the giants within the land of Canaan. On this side of the sermon-letter’s central focus upon the priestly work of Christ, the preacher has been giving us example after example of those who have faith and preserve their souls. He wants to flood his readers with these heroes of the faith because their own faith shall be tested by the crucible of persecution. These were all regular men and women, not superhuman demigods like the pagan heroes, who by looking by faith for the heavenly city that is to come received the greatest prize in all the cosmos: the commendation of their Creator.
And the question that this chapter and the entire sermon-letter sets before us is: Will we do likewise? When push comes to shove, will we shrink back in fear like the exodus generation, or will we have faith and receive the commendation of our Father?
Of Judges, Kings, & Prophets// Verse 32
As we have already seen in 9:5, the author of Hebrews is fully aware of his time constraints. Although he would have enjoyed working through every piece of furnishing in the tabernacle to show how each pointed forward to the coming of Christ, he kept his focus on the goal of his sermon-letter and continued on. A similar point has now been reached in our present chapter. After working his way from Abel to Rahab (skipping already many more examples of faithfulness that could have been told), the author now seems to catch himself from going further, realizing his need to wrap up this discourse on faith:
And what more shall I say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets–
Moving on from Joshua, which recorded the events described in verses 30-31, the author now gives a list of six names, four from Judges and two from 1-2 Samuel. He then ends by saying “and the prophets,” which was large number of men who served from the time of David onward.
By faith, Gideon, Barak, Samson, and Jephthah were each judges of Israel after the conquest of Canaan and before there was a king in Israel. The Book of Judges is an unpleasant book because it describes the gradual descent of Israel into wickedness as great or even greater than the nations around them. That descent is recorded through downward cycles of sin and rescue. In each cycle, Israel worships false gods, God gives Israel into the hand of an enemy, Israel cries out for rescue, God raises up a judge to deliver them, and the cycle repeats. Thus, each of these men were raised up by God during a time of great crisis and defeat in Israel, and all were given victory over their enemies through the strength of the LORD.
Gideon is probably the best example. He prepared to fight the Midianites with 32,000 men, but Yahweh commanded him to let those who were afraid go home. So 22,000 left. Yet God further whittled those 10,000 down to only 300 so that all would have to confess that victory came from the hand of Yahweh. By faith, Gideon obeyed the commands of God and delivered God’s people from their enemy. The same was also true of Barak, Samson, and Jephthah. They each obtained victories in battle because they believed God’s words to them and responded in obedience.
Of course, the examples of the faith of David and Samuel would be a lengthy list in itself. Samuel was faithful to God’s command even when it meant defying the highly unstable King Saul. David’s devotion to the LORD earned Him the distinction of being called a man after God’s own heart.
Yet as with everyone else in this chapter, these six men were not always faithful. After his victory over the Midianites and after rejecting the people’s demand for him to rule over them, Gideon made a ephod of gold, “and all Israel whored after it there, and it became a snare to Gideon and to his family” (Judges 8:27).
Although Barak did conquer kingdoms and put armies to flight by faith, his was a weak faith that was dependent upon Deborah, who was the actual judge of Israel at that time. And because of his wavering faith, the glory of his victory was given to another woman named Jael.
Jephthah was not any better. After his victory, he made a vow to offer whatever greeted him upon returning home to the Yahweh, but his daughter came to him rather than any of his animals. Rather than repent of his foolish vow, he offered his daughter as a burnt offering to the LORD, which revealed that he did not know God’s law or else he would have remembered Deuteronomy 12:29-32:
When the LORD your God cuts off before you the nations whom you go in to dispossess, and you dispossess them and dwell in their land, take care that you be not ensnared to follow them, after they have been destroyed before you, and that you do not inquire about their gods, saying, ‘How did these nations serve their gods?–that I also may do the same.’ You shall not worship the LORD your God in that way, for every abominable thing that the LORD hates they have done for their gods, for they even burn their sons and their daughters in the fire to their gods. Everything that I command you, you shall be careful to do. You shall not add to it or take from it.
Samson is perhaps the weakest in faith of the bunch. Although he was used by the LORD to fight back the mighty Philistines, he mostly seems to fight for his own self-interest. Even as he made his final prayer for renewed strength after having his eyes gouged out, he prayed, “O Lord GOD, please remember me and please strengthen me only this once, O God, that I may be avenged on the Philistines for my two eyes” (Judges 16:28).

David succeeded were Saul failed, both in good and in evil. The LORD was his chief glory and delight, yet the great king still sinned. He committed adultery with the wife of one of his most faithful servants and attempted to cover up his sin by sending Uriah on a suicide mission, just as Saul once tried to do to David.
While we are not told of any explicit sins on Samuel’s part, we do read about his sons that they “did not walk in his ways but turned aside after gain. They took bribes and perverted justice” (1 Samuel 8:3). Thus, for all of Samuel’s faithfulness, the overt wickedness of his sons would have likely left him unqualified to serve as an elder of a church under the new covenant.
What are we to make of such broken examples of faith?
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