By Dave Hunt
The article may be found here.
Created 1997-01-01
www.thebereancall.org
I received a heart-rending letter
recently. A man wrote, "I cannot adequately describe the shock, horror,
dismay, anger, grief...which flooded into my soul [upon witnessing an
abortion in the film Assignment Life]. I could scarcely begin
to comprehend the moral magnitude and awful implications of legal mass
elective infanticide, or how such a thing could...happen without a huge
groundswell of opposition....Abortion stood as the single greatest
mockery of the gospel in modern history....I felt that to turn away from
doing something about this most heinous evil was to abandon the least
of these His brethren and thus to abandon Him....
"But to my dismay...I have been callously told
that babies who die in abortion all go to heaven anyway, so what's the
fuss? Concentrate on evangelism! I have heard lame arguments stating
that the church is not to reform the world, government, or society, but
rather to preach the gospel.
"More than
thirty years of civil protest, political activism, private litigation,
public demonstration, and civil disobedience have failed to stem the
flow of innocent blood. Finally...the actions of one Paul Hill...served
to graphically reemphasize what this conflict is about. If Paul Hill had
fatally shot a crazed gunman as he was preparing to shoot school
children with an AK-47, he would have been hailed a hero. Instead, Paul
Hill fatally shot an abortionist and his bodyguard....[W]hat moral
difference exists between shooting the crazed gunman preparing to murder
children in a playground and shooting an abortionist preparing to
murder children in the womb...?
"I am torn
daily...between what I perceive I must do as a Christian at this point
against those who kill babies for profit, and my responsibilities as a
law-abiding citizen, father, and provider for my family."
I replied to this letter in part as
follows: "I share your pain and horror that mothers could turn
their wombs...into killing chambers, with the approval of the
world's...governments. And I share your frustration and helplessness at
not knowing how to stem the tidal wave of evil...which only gathers
momentum in spite of all efforts to turn it back.
"You say, 'I am torn daily...between what I
perceive I must do as a Christian...and my responsibilities as a
law-abiding citizen....' Surely your Christian duty is not to...gun down
abortionists! You ask the distinction between that and killing a man
who is about to shoot a group of children. In the first case you would
rightly be condemned as a murderer; in the second, you would not. Nor
does killing abortionists stop abortion...."
I went on to explain that we cannot force the
ungodly to live by God's standards. Nor is abortion the only or perhaps
even the worst evil. Prostitutes and homosexuals destroy the lives of
untold millions of young people; drug dealers, more millions than
abortionists. And what about those psychiatrists and psychologists who
have devastated lives for eternity, or the atheistic high school and
university teachers who have corrupted the faith of millions more?
Should we kill all such persons? I cannot find teaching or example in
the entire Bible to indicate that Christians are to combat the world's
sins except with the gospel.
At about the
same time, I received an audiotape from Randall Terry (founder and
director of Operation Rescue) from one of his radio programs in which he
denounced my views—and asked me to repent publicly.
Here are excerpts from that program:
"Somebody gave me a copy of a portion of Dave Hunt's book, Whatever
Happened to Heaven?...and I've literally been sick in my heart
over his chapter on Christian activism....[Dave says,] '...there is
not one example in the entire Bible of political or social activism
ever being advocated or used by God's people...'!
"First of all, God said to King David, 'He who
rules among men must be just, ruling in the fear of God....' God himself
advocates righteous people being involved in government....[T]his man
[Hunt] reads the Bible?! King Jehoshaphat (2 Chr 19:5-7 [1]) said
to the judges, 'Consider what you are doing, for you do not judge for
man but for the LORD....' King Jehoshaphat...exhorting the judges to
judge righteously [is] political activism. Social activism: Gideon broke
down the village idol that was in his dad's front yard and destroyed
it. In 1 Kings 15 [2], a righteous king named Asa...put away
the...homosexuals out of the land. He was doing battle with the
homosexual movement...! Then in 2 Kings 23 [3] we see Josiah
throwing the sodomites out of the temple....He also destroyed the valley
of the son of Hinnom...the precursor to abortion....He was a Christian
activist!
"Remember, David Hunt has said,
'There is not one example in the entire Bible of political activism
or social activism ever being used by God's people!' What about
in Deuteronomy 16 [4] where Moses says, 'Choose from among you
judges and officers to rule in your gates'?...Proverbs 28:4 [5]
says, 'Those who forsake the law praise the wicked; those who uphold the
law resist them.' We are to resist people who break God's law. Speaking
of lobbying, remember when Saul [said], that anyone who eats honey
before sunset shall be put to death? What happened? All of the people
surrounded him and...protected him [Jonathan]. They lobbied King Saul
and saved his [Jonathan's] life.
"What
about when the Apostles were arrested by the guards? The Bible says that
the guards were so afraid of the mob that gathered around them that
they thought they might be stoned and so they treated the Apostles
gently....That was social action....King David was lobbied more than
once to settle different disputes, and yet David Hunt says there's not
one example in the entire Bible of political or social activism or of
lobbying....Has this man fallen off of another planet?!...David,
please...study your Bible, dear brother....
"Romans 13 [6] says this: 'for rulers
are... the minister[s] of God to you for good...to avenge those who do
evil....' Perhaps ...[Hunt] would prefer Hindu standards with temple
prostitution and child prostitution and women being tied to funeral
pyres?...[T]his is insanity...! Colossians 1:16 [7] says 'all
things were created by him and for him, visible and invisible, whether
thrones or dominions or powers or authorities....' Christ is seated at
the right hand of God the Father, He's over all thrones, dominions,
powers...and He's put them under us, too, because we're His body, the
church....Psalm 149 [8] says this: 'With the high praises of God
in their mouth and a two-edged sword in their hand'—talking about the
people of God—'to execute vengeance on the nations...this honor have all
the saints.'...
"[T]his dear brother
would rewrite the Scriptures....If you've read a Dave Hunt book...no
wonder you're not doing anything!...I'm going to send him a copy of this
tape and...invite him to repent publicly...[T]his book [is] filled with
error, half-truths, untruths and otherwise babble. ...Listen to this: '...Christian
activism is not Christian. It represents a detour from the straight
path the church is to walk....It can confuse the real issues, lead to
compromise and unholy alliances and divert time and effort that would be
better used in proclaiming the gospel....'
"So Josiah,...your social activism that won God's
approval, fighting the homosexuals, fighting the childkillers...was all
wasted time. Jeremiah, you really had your priorities screwed
up...complaining about the babies being murdered....Hezekiah, all your
work against idolatry and the abominations of your day, wasted
effort....
"This is poison in the
Christian community....the culture's in the jaws of hell and the church
is in a muck hole because of insane theology like this....Listen to Luke
1 [9]....Christ's coming....of course, it saves people...but verses
70-75 talk about political freedom,...Abraham's seed,...being able to
live at peace and to serve God without fear,...in a culture that's free
from pagan rule....Part of the prophesied blessing of King Jesus' coming
was...'and of the increase of His government and peace there shall be
no end,' to establish...justice and judgment upon the throne of his
father, [King] David, Isaiah 9 [10]. Political freedom, cultural
freedom, political justice and righteousness are all... the prophesied
fruits of the coming of Jesus Christ, and David Hunt says,...'There
is not any example or doctrinal teaching to support the idea that
Christians ought to engage in political or social activism.'
"Brother David, I trust you are listening by
tape now....I believe David is a brother but I believe he's been
deceived; and...he's become a deceiver and these deceptions that are in
this book were born in hell ...[and] when there is false
teaching,...issued forth publicly, it must be rebuked...publicly. I
encourage my brother to repent and to abandon this out-of-balance
deceit, to study his Bible and then write a retraction...."
I appreciate Randall Terry's forthrightness and
his passion to oppose abortion. The Bible does not forbid political or
social activism. It does not, however, support it. Neither Jesus, the
Apostles nor the early church attempted in that way to oppose the social
evils of their day. Instead, they "turned the world upside down" (Acts
17:6 [11]) with the gospel.
In
attempting to justify his position from Scripture, one of Terry's major
errors is in confusing Israel and the church. Gideon, Jeremiah, David,
Solomon, Asa, Josiah, Hezekiah, Jehoshaphat, et al. were not Christians
as he claims. Nor were their actions in smashing idols, in ridding
Israel of homosexuals and stopping the practice of offering children to
Molech—or the setting up of righteous judges by Moses—either political
or social "activism." These were the deeds of Israel's leaders,
ruling God's "chosen people," of whom He said, "And ye shall be holy
unto me: for I the LORD am holy, and have severed you from other
people, that ye should be mine" (Lev 20:26). Israel is unique: "He
hath not dealt so with any [other] nation" (Ps 147:20 [12]).
And the men of Israel sticking up for Jonathan
is Christian lobbying? Hardly. Nor did any "mob" ever "gather
around" the Apostles to protect them (Acts 5:26 [13]); and even
if they had, these were unbelieving Jews who could hardly set an example
of Christian social action as Terry claims. As for Romans
13 [14], it tells us to obey secular rulers and says not
one word about opposing them if they fail to represent God. Examples
from the Old Testament of Israel's rulers executing God's law in
Israel are no model for Christians to impose God's laws upon
Gentile society. Moreover, verses which state that God is sovereign (Col
1:16 [15], etc.) have nothing to say about Christian
political/social activism. The promises of the Messiah's rule quoted
from Luke 1 [16] pertain to a redeemed Israel back in her land;
they are not promises that the church will take over the world.
Terry's failure to distinguish between Israel and
the church is most dangerous when he quotes Psalm 149 [17] about
saints "with a two-edged sword in their hands" executing "vengeance on
the nations" (is he really advocating armed violence, a return to the
Crusades?)! This psalm concerns Israel, not the church. Far from telling
the church to take over the world, Christ said that His kingdom was not
of this world, that His servants did not fight. He promised us, "If the
world hate you, ye know that it hated me....ye are not of the world,
but I have chosen you out of the world....If they have persecuted me,
they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying [which the
world did not], they will keep yours also [obviously we won't be
influential in the world]" (Jn 15:18-21 [18]).
Paul warned the Ephesian elders with tears
night and day for three years (Acts 20:28-31 [19])! Did he
warn about the abortion, homosexuality, pornography, and other evils
rampant in society at that time and call for political/social action to
oppose it? No. He warned about the coming apostasy and told
them to "feed the flock of God."
Why is
it that those who are so concerned about the immoral behavior of the
godless all around us seem so little concerned about the false gospel of
Roman Catholicism which is leading nearly a billion souls to hell, or
about the heresy and unbelief within the church? A recent poll of
Lutherans revealed that three out of ten doubt the divinity of Christ,
the same percentage reject His resurrection, four out of ten doubt the
existence of God, and seven out of ten believe that all religions lead
to the same God! And only 55 percent of the representatives at the
Southern Baptist Convention of Louisiana in November voted that the
Bible is inerrant! Why don't the Christian activists show concern for
this unbelief which eternally damns souls?
As
the letter first quoted above said, more than 30 years of civil protest
and Christian activism (Focus on the Family, the Christian Coalition,
etc.) have not stopped abortion. Instead of the hoped-for moral
awakening, morals have declined. Crime, drug addiction, pornography,
divorce, etc. increase. Scarcely 10 percent of Americans believe in all
of the Ten Commandments, a third of all married Americans have had an
affair, and a fifth of the children have lost their virginity by age 13.
Would all of the effort that has gone into political and social action
have done more good if instead it had been expended upon reaching the
lost with the gospel as Christ commanded us?
The above article is - in a word - excellent. There are few writers today who have the logic and clarity of thought of Dave Hunt. He is a joy to read. Thank you, Dave.
Royal Heir
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