Cyber-security isn't 'loving others' any more
than is banking, delivering mail or building stairs. Some (and only some) of
these jobs can become 'loving' if they're done gratuitously. That's an aspect
of ministry or Christian service.
Doing these things for a wage or profit is not an
example of loving. I try and treat those as I would be treated. I need to be
fair, but who defines that? I'm afraid for most (and certainly most Christian
financial advisors) the world does. It defines what a fair price is. I realise
at this point many will erroneously point to the market system as somehow
divinely ordained but there's no warrant for such Enlightenment (and even
Pelagian) beliefs.
If I get hired to deliver mail or build stairs
I'm doing legitimate work and I can do it as a Christian but it's a job not a
ministry. There's nothing wrong with being compensated but at that point, it's
not Kingdom work, it's simply work to help me make enough to support my family
and meet my obligations. If I make extra, then hopefully I will use it for
something profitable. My life is my ministry, the work is a means to an end. As
a Christian I should do my work with integrity but there's no specifically
'Christian' way to deliver mail or build stairs and in fact many pagans might
do it better. And that's fine. Again it's a means not an end. If you happen to
have a job that you love doing, then count yourself blessed. Few people can say
that. If you mean vocation or calling in that sense, in the sense that it's
something you love to do and are good at, then fine. But that's not what
Dominionist Theology teaches about Vocation. They equate the work with the
Kingdom and worship... and that is a
grievous anti-Scriptural error.
Even though Dominionist teachers say it's a
sinful way to think, I along with most am 'working for the weekend'. While at
work 5-6 days a week I give it my best though I will never sell myself out to
the work. Other things come first. And the work doesn't define me. It's not my
ministry and when people talk about me after I'm gone I hope my name is never
associated with this or that job. I hope I am remembered for being a Christian,
a husband and father. Everything else in my life were things I had to do to
meet daily needs. They were not things that are part of the Kingdom and its
life and I could happily do something else for a living.
Will there be work in heaven? Of some type to be
sure but its nature and order will be so different that Paul can safely say
it's beyond our epistemological imagination. It defies both empirical and ideal
imaginations. That's all we know. Anything else is just an attempt by someone
with an agenda to get you on board with their programme, which of course
involves your money and your time.
The Vocational understanding which equates
business with ministry would have to say that re-investing my profits in the
company is a valid act of worship and love, just
as valid as giving it to someone poor or using it to help someone in need. If
your company is your ministry, if building your company is building the
Kingdom, then investment is worship and maximising profits is stewardship. In
fact if you're not successful then you're probably not serious about serving
God.
This is turning the New Testament on its head.
Again this is Prosperity Gospel. Don't think it's just Joel Osteen and Creflo
Dollar. The same 'gospel' albeit in toned down form is taught in many
Confessional and Evangelical pulpits. Though not often openly expressed it's
implicit in Reformed circles as the aforementioned pastor indicated.
Unfortunately the article also cites Lutheran GE
Veith who is a prominent advocate of the doctrine. I have laboured elsewhere to
demonstrate that Veith is almost consistently wrong in his understanding of
Scripture, history, culture and philosophy. I encountered his work in the
1990's and even then I reckoned him something of a charlatan. As my own
learning increased, my opinion of his work only lessened. He is an ear tickler
but his work is easily dismantled by anyone familiar with the Scriptures,
history or the history of ideas.
Providential reign cannot be equated with Holy
Realm. This is at the heart of the Dominionist error. God does use means. This
present evil age is restrained by various means and yet there is nothing in the
New Testament to suggest these jobs and tasks, these means are part of the Holy
Kingdom. They are not part of the ministry of the Holy Spirit. They are not
part of the New Covenant. They are not part of Heaven but part of the world and
its works which will burn up.
The various social tasks serve their purpose but
they're temporary and doomed. Nebuchadnezzar, Cyrus, Tiglath-Pileser and even
Caesar Augustus were all agents of Providence too. They served as a means to
order the world and manage its affairs. Unwittingly they too as 'ministers' and
'servants' served the plan of redemption but nowhere are these agents or their
agencies reckoned part of the Holy Covenant. In fact they're condemned. They
are heads of the Beast.
I may drive a grain truck and as a Christian I'm
not condemned for it but the company I work for and the system it supports and
depends on is condemned. The agents and agencies aren't doing these things for
the glory of God or for some righteous cause. They have their own motivations. That
alone condemns them. I cannot see the big picture. I am not privy to God's
grand plan and so I'm called to submit in faith and keep my eyes, hope and
heart focused on heaven. The job, the vocation (as it were) is ultimately
nothing and I need to be willing to drop it in a heartbeat if it conflicts with
my true Vocation.... my calling to serve Jesus Christ.
Plumer abuses Psalm 127 and seems to miss the
point regarding marriage and marital relations. They are valid but temporary.
Marriage for Christians can serve as a symbol of Christian Union but it is
imperfect and temporary and according to Christ does not survive the eschaton.
It's perfectly legitimate to get married and in addition to being rather nice
it serves its purpose in procreation but contrary to Plumer and most teachers
of Dominionist Vocation, Paul urges Christians to a higher calling, that of
celibacy. This is to live (as per 1 Corinthians 7) in accord with our heavenly
calling, to live in light of Parousia.
Has this doctrine been abused? Certainly but
Dominionist Vocation can't even account for Paul's attitude. In their zeal to
erase all duality between fallen Nature and Covenantal Grace they have
flattened the Kingdom dynamic into a monism, confusing nature with the Kingdom.
They accuse people like me of having an over-realised eschatology but they
cannot see.... it is they who have the over-realised eschatology. They have
sought salvation in This Age as opposed to the Age to Come. In many cases they
literally believe it is our task to transform This Age into the Age to Come. But
the Scriptures teach Christ's Heavenly Kingdom is not of this world. Christ's
Kingdom is the New Heavens and New Earth. Dominionist Vocation says that we
build the New Heavens and New Earth here and now. This reality is amplified by the
fact that most who embrace this teaching insist on continuity. Contrary to the
teachings of Peter in his second epistle they insist that cultural advancements
are manifestations of the Kingdom and so what we produce in This Age will be
part of The Age to Come.
This is appealing to artists, entrepreneurs, the
rich and others who would 'take it with them', but it's an empty doctrine for
the poor who place little stock in this life.
Luther was wrong on Vocation and rather than
celebrate this doctrine it needs to be denounced. It has proven to be one of
the most destructive legacies of the Reformation. In seeking to correct Roman
Catholic error it went too far in the other direction and created an error
perhaps even more grievous. It is baptised worldliness and little else. The
Church has sought to change the world and instead the world has invaded and
overcome the Church. Everywhere this doctrine has been applied has become a
spiritual wasteland. It manifests itself in different ways depending on the
context. In South Africa it became Apartheid. It both New England, Scotland and
the Netherlands it generated a tremendous and bitter backlash and today these are
largely godless and even anti-Christian places.
Only at the end of the article did I realise its
author was affiliated with Albert Mohler's Southern Baptist Theological
Seminary. Mohler has consistently advocated this core Evangelical doctrine. An
admirer of Billy Graham and the post-war Evangelical project Mohler is part of
the New Calvinism and indeed part of what I might call the Dominionist Infusion
of the 1990's. From the 1950's-1970's Evangelicalism worked to erode and
destroy Fundamentalism and all varieties of Christian Separatism. The failures
of the 1980's and the 'Culture War' crisis of the 1990's led to a re-examination
of basic principles and a more resolute and robust attempt to flesh out a
holistic philosophical programme. This was Dominionism. The Reformed world
supplied the fuel for the fire. RJ Rushdoony, Francis Schaeffer and of course
Abraham Kuyper were brought to the masses. These names were already known in
the Reformed world, especially Schaeffer's, but now these teachings were
aggressively brought wholesale into the Evangelical sphere, re-packaged in some
cases and heavily marketed. By the end of the Clinton era the transformation
was almost complete. Today very few possess even an understanding of the old
Fundamentalist ethos, let alone that of the Pilgrims or Reformation
antecedents. Through the New Calvinism, Evangelical worldliness and consumerist
ideology has invaded Reformed circles and has softened and in some cases broken
older Confessional understandings of ecclesiology and the battle with
worldliness. Albert Mohler has been an important figure in this downgrade and
pollution of the Church. This is even while he is hailed as an anti-liberal
hero and a preserver of Reformed doctrine and conservative Christianity.
This doctrine is pure poison but very few will
hear it. One wonders if the old Confessionalist Puritan ethos of the Banner of
Truth is in the process of change? While the old ethos was not above criticism
by any means it is preferable to the American-style Dominionism which at
present is being exported across the globe.