Finley, I am.

Blog

#preachers

#douglas-wilson

Douglas Wilson is the senior minister of Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho and blogs at Blog & Mablog.

Ascertain the Truth

If the consequence of all this is that you do not know who to root for because I have not shared enough information to activate your tribal loyalties, then the only thing I have established here is that you should be disqualified from jury duty for life. You might have attached some tribal loyalties to the story on your own authority by filling in some of the things I left blank, but I guarantee that I could come back and tell the full story in a way as to flip it around for you.

And this is why a bunch of people I could mention should spend a lot less time in comment threads and a lot more time reading edifying material.

It is astonishing how many people think they can ascertain the truth about an enormously complicated snarl from three thousand miles away, and all they needed to do was watch three minutes of a video clip. But it is not that easy—that is just how they make it look easy. Why does it look so easy? You see, it is possible to identify your tribe from three thousand miles away, and you can do that in three seconds or so.

Anthony Bradley, Conflicted Apologist for Bad JuJu by Pastor Douglas Wilson

Whether we’re talking about child abuse— previously known as spanking— or complex family disagreements over the meaning and purpose of life, your ability to ascertain the truth from three thousand miles away based on a video clip or a few tweets is nil, non-existant. Sorry to tell you this. Yeah, the individual may belong to your tribe or a tribe that you are an ally of, but this is not grounds to rally the troops for a good, ol’ fashion lynching.

Just a word of advice.

Why I'm Against Empathy by Paul Bloom

I was talking about empathy with a coworker and she shared this video from a more secular perspective on the topic. Spoilers, he lands on much the same conclusions that I stated in Misrepresentations From Hecklers in the Peanut Gallery and Empathy vs. Sympathy, namely that compassion is often a better response and empathy has a lot of negative consequences. This of course is not because I am wise, but because I am the fool on “elephantine adventures in pursuit of the obvious.”

Empathy vs. Sympathy

the difference between sympathy and empathy was the difference between objective truth and subjective felt “truth.”

Empathy as the Headwaters of Cruelty, Pastor Douglas Wilson

In an article this week addressing the pro-Hamas and pro-Gaza riots, Pastor Doug takes a moment for a sermon against untethered empathy. While I could high five his points on the riots and the conflict at hand, I find the human core more important.

Doug references a video that he did with Joe Rigney about empathy. I watched that video a couple months ago and it made a major impact on me and my understanding of current events. More coming on that some other time.

When you see someone drowning in the river, the virtue of sympathy requires that you help him. In the metaphor, you help by keeping one foot on the bank and you extend a hand, or throw a rope.

So what is the difference between empathy and sympathy. Sympathy is a Christian value. God shows us sympathy, standing on the rock and reaching a hand out to us to pull us from the muck and mire. In a class that I was in earlier this week, the instructor accidently said that God was empathetic. Obviously many believe these words to be synonyms. They are not. I kindly corrected the instructor and pointed out that for God to show empathy, God would have to negate His other divine attributes.

[T]he empathetic one needs to take a header into the river, identifying completely and entirely with the drowning person. The empathetic one offers no judgments, no assessments, no evaluations. The empathy is by definition untethered. Unless you sink to the bottom with him, it is obvious to everyone that you don’t really care.

Agree with me on everything, disagree on nothing. Do not tell me that I am wrong. Do not tell me that I have sinned. Do not tell me that I walked all the way out here and am now drowning despite Your pleas that I stop, Your clear warnings of what would happen if I didn’t, Your clear signs along the bank with graphic iconography. I am drowning because I was born this way. I am drowning because You made me this way.

Now join me in the water and agree with me. Anything less is abject hatred.

This sounds familiar to literally anyone paying attention to the world. It also should sound familiar to any parent, as this is how children act. And your job as a parent is to stand on the riverbank and pull them out, dry them off, and teach them a lesson. That is what God does for us.

Unfortunately, the modern world isn’t taking that lesson well and is throwing a tantrum to make their parents look bad.

It follows that if such a person is your client, then they are in the in group, and they are in that in group all the way. Anyone who is playing the role of their adversary—or perhaps we should say persecutor—has to be treated with relentless savagery. This is because that adversary is challenging the victim’s sacrosanct right to be affirmed in absolutely everything. To criticize the victim is to throw a dead cat at the high altar. To be the recipient of empathy in this system is to be utterly and completely beyond criticism. And because we live in a world where trade-offs necessarily happen, this means that anyone who gets in the way of what that recipient of empathy demands is dead meat.

One of many reasons why I don’t like therapy. Watch the video with Joe Rigney and you’ll understand a bit better, but the gist is that the relationship doesn’t encourage the therapist to criticize the client or in any way understand and take the side of their persecutor.

Suppose the empathy-claimant is a twelve-year-old girl who was raped by her stepfather. As long as she is affirmed absolutely by an empathetic counselor, she can do whatever she wants to anyone else, including the baby. […] And an empathetic judge can send the stepfather to the penitentiary for twenty-five years, which turns out to have been unfortunate, because he actually didn’t rape anybody. Empathy toward one is necessary cruelty toward another. But empathy, like Gallio, cares for none of these things (Acts 18:17).

Liars can use this system to get empathy for the supposed actions of others and therapists don’t ask enough clarifying questions to understand those that supposedly persecute their clients. Further, they show empathy by joining their lying clients in the muck and mire, they join the rage against their abusive persecutors.

They fuel it and reward it.

This is a system that has allowed narcissists to get fed energy from people by lying about others. This reward creates a cycle where the lies have to get worse and worse. They are a victim, they are being persecuted, they are being attacked, their family is abusive, etc. And you cannot get in the way of their lies, you cannot question their lies, because it is their “truth” and questioning it is victim blaming, or some other made up sin.

Further, all their actions against their persecutor is justified as they are a victim. Don’t ask them if what they are saying is true, don’t stay silent, you must affirm, cheer them on, and celebrate their actions.

This is the complete opposite of a Christian ethic. When my daughter claims that a boy hit her, my natural instinct is to destroy him. That is my natural instinct. But sanctification has brought me to the point that I have to ask her to explain. Turns out, it wasn’t a malicious hit, it was an accident and he felt super bad, apologized, and I don’t need to hang him by his boxers on the flag pole as an example of what not to do to my daughter. Vikings gotta viking, but righteous men of Christ have to live by mercy, grace, and love.

That stepfather in prison is there because empathy absolutely refused to let anyone raise the question of his possible innocence. There is no way to raise the question of his innocence without simultaneously raising the prospect that the stepdaughter was lying, and how would that make her feel? So even to raise the question of possible innocence was to be guilty of the crime yourself.

This is the conundrum that empathy has made for you. If you choose to show empathy for someone that claims abuse, you cannot raise the question that their abuser is potentially innocent. By raising that question, you are— by the nature of the question— raising the question of whether the accuser is lying. That will abuse the abused, thus making you an abuser too.

There is an alternative.

You can have sympathy for the person that is claiming abuse, you can reach a hand out and help them out of the water, talk with them and understand their perspective. Instead of fueling the rage, instead they need to get better. They are in fact getting bitter if they stay in the water, staying in the rage. Empathy will never make them better, only bitter. And for the narcissist, it encourages this behavior and they very well may be the abuser.

Empathy and sympathy are not the same thing. One could rightly argue that empathy is sinful as it can require you to lie or have untethered anger against someone in an ungodly way. Yet, in the modern age, we are told our only option is empathy and “this means that anyone who gets in the way of what that recipient of empathy demands is dead meat.”

So to finish with one last quote:

In short, we cannot say that we haven’t been warned.

Empathy as the Headwaters of Cruelty, Pastor Douglas Wilson

No Quarter November!

Let’s go!

A Moral Compass and the Ball Peen Hammer

I happen to believe that it is perverse that our federal government is more concerned about the integrity of Ukraine’s border than they are about the U.S. border. But how would that make the Russians the good guys? And an intelligent person could believe that more of our resources should be deployed to the Texas border than to the border between Gaza and Israel. But how would that make Hamas any less wicked? You can stop making excuses for Biden without starting to make excuses for Hamas.

And it doesn’t help if the “talking points” are evangelistic in nature. If we were all to be shocked by a macabre set of murders that happened in Connecticut, and somebody online started to say things like “well, the victims probably weren’t Christian,” and the judgments of God are inscrutable, the only conclusion I would draw is that we had found ourselves an evangelist with a tin ear, and a tongue like a brick.

A Moral Compass and the Ball Peen Hammer

It’s been hard to articulate my views on Israel over the last few days other than praying without ceasing. Lots of opinions going around in the Christian sphere. Those that want Gaza wiped out, those that want Israel wiped out, those that want America to pounce on Iran, those that want America to not be involved at all. Lots of opinions. And for me… I have had a hard time. Pastor Doug does a great job at articulating many of my concerns, many of my views.

Hamas is wicked, the attacks were pure savagery, and we need to be praying for the victims, the hostages, and all of Israel.

Another way of putting this is that Muslims are not justified in their behavior simply because they can point to a passage in the Quran. There are such passages, but pointing to them will avail nothing. The man who gave them the Quran will also be standing before the judge of the whole earth as well. Muslims will discover at that time that Allah is not the true God, and that their warrant for hatred that they thought they possessed from him was not a valid warrant at all. All of that was forbidden by the true God, the one who will do the actual judging.

Justice, true justice, is coming for all involved. Relativism be damned, no matter how justified Hamas thinks they are because their Quran gives them authority to capture, rape, and torture women and girls. A day is coming when every Muslim will take a knee before the Throne of God Almighty and be held accountable for their sins and they will realize that Allah was nothing but a false idol unworthy of their adoration. My prayer is they find Jesus before they meet Him involuntarily.

And that same prayer goes for the Jews. Jews must follow Christ as well. Without salvation from the Blood of Christ, no man or woman will enter the Kingdom of God. Period. Full stop. And that includes the Jews.

Christian, pray. It is what we do. Wars and rumors of wars abound in these days and what we do is pray. Pray for peace, pray for revival, pray for an end to all the horrors of our world. Pray.

We Cannot Make Dragons Evaporate Simply By Wishing

What is the best thing a man can do under hard circumstances? The answer is the same in every generation, under every circumstance. He needs to be a hard man. Note that I do not mean hardhearted. I simply mean that in a world where there are dragons, there must be dragon-slayers. We cannot make the dragons evaporate simply by wishing. The mountain is filled with dragons, and there is no complaint department.

I am not telling you that you need to step it up because it is just that you do so. I know that it is unjust. None of this is fair. That’s why you need to step it up.

What a Father Could Have Taught by Douglas Wilson

The Shameless v. the Unashamed

One of the heartening signs that has resulted from the ascendancy of this creepy clown world regime is that it has revealed to me that there are still seven thousand who have not bowed the knee to Baal. There have been many new voices, deserted by their former leaders, who have stepped into the breach. They are standing up straight, and they are unashamed.

It is true that things look bad. The leadership of Laketown was feckless and self-serving. The whole town is in disarray, and is under attack. The dragon has come and everything is hopeless.

But there is one man, Bard, and he has one arrow. And with that one arrow in his hand, one bird comes and speaks to him. And he sets the arrow to string, unashamed.

The Shameless v. the Unashamed by Douglas Wilson

No commentary needed here. Pastor Doug said it all. Christian, go read Pastor Doug’s post. Or watch the video.

America’s Inchoate and Disinte­grating Soul

America’s Inchoate and Disinte­grating Soul

Speaking out in terrible taste now seems like the good old days to us. Tennessee had recently outlawed trans-surgery on minors, and so the hot takes after the Nashville shootings were running along the lines of “straight Tennessee had it coming.” This is not politics anymore—this is something else entirely.

That Acrid Taste of Damnation by Douglas Wilson

Let’s go.

The idea is to believe in oneself, to reach deep down within one’s own heart, and there to discover a treasury of infinite riches. So goes the lie. But what we have discovered instead is that we have become a vacuous people with hollow souls, empty minds, and grasping hands.

Vacuous. Emptied of or lacking content. A commenter on YouTube put it this way, “this is angry Doug.” Yes, yes it is.

If you are reading this, and you are one of those who has been surgically torn apart by such lies, and you are still miserable, that misery has to do with your relationship to the God you are still rejecting. Your misery has nothing to do with the fact that some people in the red states disapprove of what you have done. They cut off your breasts in San Francisco, and you are not spiritually empty because somebody in Tulsa disapproves. You feel spiritually empty because you are spiritually empty, and Oklahoma has little or nothing to do with it. Not only so, but the surgeon who did this awful thing to you is spiritually empty as well, and the medical profession certified him is as hollow as a jug. Looking to them for answers is like drinking from the dry and broken cisterns of ancient Israel, the ones that were dry in Jeremiah’s day.

Let me speak clearly.

I spent my week in worship to temper my words. To temper my hands. To pull my punches. I would guess that Pastor Doug did the same. Tongues should not be unrestrained. But restrained tongues, something necessary for every Christian man and woman— by which I am including everyone as there are only men and women—, still must speak truth in the darkness, still must call evil evil, and still must call for the hearts of man to turn from darkness and repent.

This week we saw an unrepentant, monster of a woman walk into a school seeking to kill children. And she did just that. Three kids the age of my daughter and three adults my parent’s age slaughtered by a vile snake. And all week I saw the media raise her up. Glorify her. Why? Because she was a victim too. Her parents didn’t “love” her the way she needed, the church rejected her, Tennessee had this coming by passing laws that prevented sexual dance shows by cross-dressing freaks around children. I have read think-piece after think-piece about her. I have read the tweets from lunatic, loathsome, lousy Leftists saying that she was executed by the police. And then there are the protests. Extremists stormed Texas, Oklahoma, Florida, Nashville, Kentucky, and Montana’s capitols over the last couple of days, attacking police and holding “die-ins,” a practice by which the protester lies on the ground and acts as if they are dead. Either no self-awareness or a complete callousness to the reality that one of their tribe murdered children literally days before in the name of their cause.

These people are evil, wretched fools.

It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were cast into the sea than that he should cause one of these little ones to sin.

Luke 17:2

Let me speak clearly. I support the laws passed in Tennessee. And the message this week has been loud and clear. If you support these laws, don’t be surprised when your children are murdered. But this is the logical conclusion of years of rhetoric that includes calling those that disagree with you “fascists”, saying that we want to “send you to a concentration camp”, that we want you “dead” and “murdered”. This is what comes when you ask questions on TikTok like “when are we going to start treating the fascists like the world did in the 1940s?” You convince a group of people that they are victims, that they are being attacked, that “words are violence,” that “silence is violence,” and that “disagreement denies your existence” and then tell them that those oppressing them are Christians and that we need to kill the fascists and it’s no wonder that eventually someone takes your no-one-could-actually-take-this-bullshit-seriously bullshit seriously and decides that killing children is the way to affect change.

And then these extremists, who charge people to kill in their name, claim she is a victim too.

See, last week I would have said this was partisan saber rattling intended to cause discord. But then I read on CNN that Democratic Rep. Jared Moskowitz said we are focusing on “[banning] books touching on gender issues” but “dead kids can’t read.” I spent a month, as things escalated in my personal life, writing about comfort in persecution, not striking back in persecution, and taming the lions. I think God needed my head down, buried in worship, and Scripture when this persecution came to fruition.

Vengence is not yours, Christian. Protect your children. Preach the Gospel and fight for laws that keep our children safe. But do not do it out of vengeance. Be angry. Angry at evil. Angry at those that would see children die. Angry at those that would see children sin. But then pray for resolution, for resolve, for repentance, and for restoration.

As they started the pandemic with singing, they are coming for your children. They are actively posting this.

So as to not get called out for blaming the actions of a few on an entire group, this is not all of the LGBT people. Some want to live their lives and leave our kids alone. Most are likely abhorred at what transpired this week. These extremists don’t and aren’t. And unfortunately, the message of the extremists is being parroted by the media and the Democrat party. Comply or die.

America is going down a dark path right now. Pray for its soul. Pray for America to repent. Pray for mercy for a bit longer.

Culture Saturday: Good News and Hope for De­transition­ers

Culture Saturday: Good News and Hope for De­transition­ers

One of the things you may have noticed about the new site— if you have been following me a while— is the content has been less politics- and culture-related over the last two weeks. Part of that was intentional. In migrating all the content, I got to add great features like tag pages and nested tags and similar posts.

These features gave me great insight into what my focus points have been and let me chart out where I want my focus points to be. For one, I want to write about what I do more. Web development, woodworking, etc. And I’ve done more of that in the last two weeks than I have in the last 8 years of this site. Another is music. I play a lot of music. Instruments and songs. Looking back at the Christmas songs over the years that have impacted me and why is great.

Ultimately, I am trying to share more evenly across many categories. I am writing a lot and saving drafts to publish later. I am coming to a sort of strategy. And culture and politics are part of that. The intersection of culture, politics, and faith is of particular interest to me and that leads us to Culture Saturdays.

Douglas Wilson, who you’ll find on my Blogroll, has been one of my favorite preachers over the last decade. Specifically, I love his willingness to address the cultural zeitgeists in a way that a shepherd should: wolves looking to kill his sheep need to be shot. That oft means uncomfortable conversations, especially in an age when tolerance is hammered with words that end in -phobia.

In an article last week, Douglas addressed a fictional— though plucked from the headlines real— young gal named Candace, who— after burning bridges to much of her family and friends in transitioning to living as a boy— has come full circle and is transitioning back after an encounter with Jesus. And there is so much good in this article, you need to go read it.

One of the temptations that comes to those who are seriously repenting is that they overshoot. In recognizing that their sin went far beyond the boundaries of God’s law, they assume falsely that their sin also went far beyond the reach of God’s grace.

Douglas Wilson, Good News and Hope for Detransitioners

The is so much importance on a proper understanding of grace. Heard someone ask the other day why “good things happen to bad people,” and I responded that if good things only happened to good people, good things would never happen. The grace of God to extend a hand is not conditional on the quality of the individual needing a hand, as then no one could qualify. While your sin has cast you very far from God, well…

[…] God’s grace does not live snugly in a little heavenly bungalow—God’s grace is a ranger, lives out in the badlands, and rounds up outlaws. God’s grace is a bounty hunter.

He’s coming for you.

But then, after He has apprehended the fugitive and brings him in, He surprises everyone by calling for the best robe, a fine ring, good shoes, and he orders that the fatted calf be killed. Then he tells the head servant to go hire a swing band. So your sin, however great it was, is no match for the kindness of God. This is something you need to fix in your mind now, and you need to make a point of hanging on to it. In Christ, God saves sinners.

Someone said the other day to me that what we see in the Bible is not Man trying to get right with God, but God trying to get right with Man. The reason we don’t see Man trying to get right with God— if you exclude all the many cases of exactly that in the Bible— is because we are totally depraved and consumed with sin. We cannot make a good decision if our lives depend on it, because our lives do in fact depend on it, and yet… Yeah. God is not, then, in fact trying to get right with us, but to get us right with Him. He is pursuing, He is wooing, He is trying to bring us home.

So the good news is that Jesus Christ died for sinners, and you qualify.

One of many reasons that I love Wilson. I listened to this article first as I was driving to work this week. I nearly spit my coffee all over the windshield with this quip. You qualify.

But we have to look straight at the nature of this good news, because there are two different kinds of good news, and we must not confuse them. […] But the second kind of good news does have prerequisites—and that is that there needs to be an antecedent understanding of the bad news. […] You receive news that the governor signed a pardon meaning that you will not be executed in the morning—but you need to have understood that you were going to be executed. Otherwise the good news makes no sense. Certain kinds of good news make no sense at all apart from the related bad news.

The threat of Hell is real. Wilson’s analogy of receiving a pardon but understanding that you were going to be executed is important. There is punishment for sin. A just God cannot allow there not to be. But, in mercy, He gives us a gift of Salvation and we must confess it, take up our cross, and follow Him. We get it for free in the sense that it cost us nothing— as there is no way we could pay the cost— but also it costs us everything. Surrender and follow. This can cost us jobs, family, friends, and so much more, but if we do not, the ramifications are eternally worse.

Many of our sins are socially complex. […] In your case, your sins were a player, but the whole thing was a group effort. There was the media propaganda. There was the social contagion of the other girls at your college doing this […] In other words, there was no shortage of sin, and plenty of sin to go around. You need to acknowledge the sins of all these other people as a theological truth, but then as a practical matter you must focus on your own sin, confessing that sin as though you were the only one at fault.

This is the addressing of the uncomfortable. Our culture is pressuring young people— children— to make life-altering decisions before they are capable of understanding the life-altering nature of those decisions. Folks that detransition are often faced with their new reality that their voices are changed forever, their reproductive systems— if they didn’t have them removed— will never function properly again, and worse. We are talking about the chemical castration of children at the altar of a societal god.

But. We are individually responsible for our choices, our actions, and without euphemism: our sins. We cannot just blame our sins on others. Others very well may have pushed us there, but we are responsible. And remember, in that responsibility and repentance we acknowledge the wages of our sin (Romans 6:23) while also receiving the grace and forgiveness that only Christ can provide.

In Which I Paint with some Bright Yellows

When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty.

Thomas Jefferson

I have a guity pleasure for the writings of Douglas Wilson. The wit and the bite of his words are something to admire. Many Christian writers are too nice, avoiding harsh, direct words even when they are necessary. Douglas doesn’t mince words.

In his latest piece, he addresses the lack of support for Kim Davis, the county clerk that has taken a stand against the new cultural edict of gay marriage.

[T]here is a difference between contempt of court and seeing that the courts have become contemptible.

This woman needs our prayers as much as the Duggars do. As she is brought before the court of the land, she will need the boldness to stand for godliness against a godless rule. This is no easy task. Fact is, she was elected to uphold the law and the rights of the citizens. These rights and these laws were not to be established by men, but by God. “Endowed by our Creator,” to quote our founding documents. But now, activist lawyers have taken it upon themselves to read additional rights into amendments that simply don’t give those rights.

So let us pray for Kim’s boldness, her faith, and her resolve. They can either fire or impeach her, or realize that when a right infringes on the rights of others, it isn’t a right. Forcing Christians to participate in sinful behavior has never been legal, so let’s pray that we can get some balance back for religious freedom.

Now this takes me to my citation of Jefferson above. Some might say that it is a shame that I, a staunch Calvinist, have taken to quoting a Deist on the relationship of righteousness to government. And I say that it is a shame that a 18th century Deist has a better grasp of the relationship of righteousness to government than do two and a half busloads of 21st century Reformed seminary professors. The striking inconsistency might have two possible causes, in other words.

Douglas Wilson

Next »