Hodge says “the only means which [civil governance] can employ to accomplish many [duties proposed by establishmentarian, such as suppressing heresy and preventing false worship], [namely, by coercion], are inconsistent with the example and commands of Christ [concerning faith and worship]; [and inconsistent] with the [liberty] of Christians, guaranteed in the Word of God (i.e., to serve God according to the dictates of one’s conscience)….”

In 1863 Charles Hodge summarized how we Scripturally argue against civil “establishment” of the church in 3 points.
First, he says the proper task or duties of the church and civil governance “must be determined from the Word of God. And when reasoning from the Word of God [on these points], we are not authorized to argue from the Old Testament [old Mosaic covenant] economy [or administration] because that was avowedly temporary and has been abolished, [instead, we] must derive our conclusions from the New Testament. We find it there taught:
(a) That Christ did institute a church separate from [civil governance], giving it separate laws and officers.
(b) That [Christ] laid down the qualifications of those officers and enjoined on the church, not on [civil governance], to judge [which men in the church meet those qualifications].
(c) That [Christ] prescribed the terms of admission to, and the grounds of exclusion from, the church, and left with the church its officers to administer these rules.”
Second, Hodge says “the New Testament, when speaking of the immediate design of [civil governance] and the official duties of the magistrate, never [suggests] that [magistrates have] those functions [related to religious belief or practice that establishmentarianism proposes]. This silence, together with the fact that those functions are assigned to the church and church officers, is proof that it is not the will of God that they should be assumed by [civil governance].”
Third, Hodge says “the only means which [civil governance] can employ to accomplish many [duties proposed by establishmentarian, such as suppressing heresy and preventing false worship], [namely, by coercion], are inconsistent with the example and commands of Christ [concerning faith and worship]; [and inconsistent] with the [liberty] of Christians, guaranteed in the Word of God (i.e., to serve God according to the dictates of one’s conscience); [as well as] ineffectual to the true end of religion, which is voluntary obedience to the truth; and [are] productive of incalculable evil. …By enjoining [duties concerning faith and worship] upon the church, as an institution distinct from [civil governance], [the New Testament] teaches positively that they do not belong to the magistrate, but to the church.”
Gregory Baus is co-host of The Reformed Libertarians Podcast. He is a confessional Presbyterian living in Northumberland, Pennsylvania. This article is used with permission.
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The discipleship gap in our churches has been exposed. What are we going to do about it? The more robustly we can connect our church re-planting efforts to making actual disciples of Jesus Christ, the deeper and wider and healthier our churches will be as we launch into the future.

Every church in America is now a church re-plant. This is a hard truth, but healthy churches will own it, while those who ignore it will be walking down the path towards a painful decline.
American Christianity has learned numerous lessons during the past 25 months: live stream, zoom meetings, and endless pivots to make worship happen. America has witnessed the further political polarization of our nation, increased tensions about racism, and heightened distrust of institutions which all have meant endless challenges for local churches and her leaders.
Yet the biggest takeaway for most churches regardless of size, denomination, or geographical location has been this: the coronavirus exposed a massive discipleship gap in nearly every church in America.[1] The discipleship gap, in my opinion, is the most pressing problem for leaders to reckon with in today’s world.
Over the last 20 years, American churches have mostly majored in “conducting worship services”. We have hoped (sometimes wistfully) that “discipleship would spontaneously happen” or that “attending a worship service” or “serving on a ministry team” would lead to discipleship. Much of this line of thinking has been exposed to be a pipe dream during the coronavirus.
I believe over the next 10 years, the people who (still) come to church will be disciples. The people in our churches who will come through the pandemic, giving sacrificially, serving selflessly, and worshipping robustly—despite every obstacle—will be the true disciples of Jesus Christ. Thus, if we want to re-plant our churches during and after this global pandemic, we need to get back to the life-on-life ministry of making actual disciples of Jesus Christ. How is your church doing this? What flourishing next step are you taking to make actual disciples of Jesus Christ?
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The solution to our cultural calamity is the gospel of Jesus Christ. Our only hope is simple repentance and trust in the Lord of all. We will never have social justice until we become committed to biblical justice. We have appealed to the better instincts of goblins and sought to find common ground with them on natural law in vain. We must preach the truth, all of it, without apology, embarrassment, or reserve. We must not only preach the Bible, we must tell the world what it means. Apollyon is standing in the path. We are doing Christian no favors by telling him simply to rest in his justification.

In the first century, Jewish Christians from Jerusalem spread false doctrine among the Gentile churches and “unsettled the souls” of faithful brethren there (Acts 15:24). Two millenia later, another generation of self-important teachers unsettle the souls of brethren outside of their own region by correcting what they perceive to be the errors of pastors and teachers in other congregations. Of course, these men are certain they are not like the Judaizing teachers who needed to be corrected in Acts 15. They imagine themselves to be on the side of the apostles and elders who get to do the correcting. That is why they write letters, make social media posts, and send warnings to brethren they have never met about brothers they did not trouble themselves to talk to directly. They think they are battling a new Judaizing error, but in fact, they are perpetrating a very old and equally wicked error by sowing division.
Human beings always cast themselves as heroes in the story of their lives, and if not heroes, then as a tragic, misunderstood, and pitiable character, a victim to awaken sympathy. Either way, we are sure that when we are on-stage, ladies will alternately coo, swoon, and weep while the men admire, applaud, and are moved in an appropriately masculine way. Pastors are prone to this as well, imagining they are some combination of John Calvin and Jack Reacher when in reality most are closer to Mr. Collins and Dwight from The Office. We think that we are dashing, but most of us are dweebs. We might do well to meditate on James Thurber’s “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” as a penitential text rather than reenacting it behind a keyboard.
The fact is there is real evil and danger in this world. Orcs are amassing outside the Church’s gates, and we may feel somewhat restless and a little desperate as we look for the White Rider in vain.
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