The
analogies provided by Mohler fail on so many levels. Even the Leviticus example
refers to individuals contracting diseases. There's no suggestion of mass
quarantine. I read the article to my kids at the dinner table and did not
reveal its author. Even my teenage daughter started picking it apart and was
able to identify its basic problems.
I will
commend Mohler on one point. At least he doesn't conflate his Leviticus
argument with the US legal code and Constitution. That's an all too common
error and one that Mohler thankfully avoids.
To
summarize, we turn again to the issue of redemptive history and find the
analogy for Old Testament Israel is found in New Testament Israel, the True
Israel, the Church of Jesus Christ. Paul does not use the example of Israel as
a model or prototype for some unspoken concept of a Christian nation. On the
contrary in Ephesians 2 he specifically says that New Testament Christians,
even Gentile Christians are now part of the Commonwealth of Israel and are part
of the covenant heritage. In Galatians, we Christians are like Isaac-Jacob-Israel,
the children of Abraham because of our union with Christ who is the true
promise-descendant of Abraham. The schoolmaster that was the Mosaic Law is
something we are no longer under and indeed the priesthood being changed (we
are reminded in Hebrews) leads to the annulling of the Old Testament. The weak
and unprofitable law of carnal commandment is annulled and replaced by the
power of endless life and a better covenant. Old Testament priests would die
and yet we are part of a covenant in which our High Priest ever lives making
intercession for us. Neither Galatians nor Ephesians nor Hebrews for that
matter suggests that the Old Testament legal code has any abiding validity nor
is it to be utilised as a prototype that we are to emulate in the construction
of a Christian society.
And again,
this idea of diving into the law, picking and choosing, taking a little of this
and that and yet leaving out this or the other – where would we find a
precedent for such an approach, such a reckless, arbitrary and subjective concept
of covenant? This approach rests on a false hermeneutic and a deeply de-covenantalised
conception of the law. Again it borders on sacrilege as it turns the law into a
smorgasbord that Christian so-called theologian-statesmen are able to use or
equally discard at will.
The analogy
to Israel is not one of the many Babel-nations but rather the Church. In
addition to the concept of holiness, the principle of excommunication is at
work in the Leviticus passage. The suffering person was put out of the
congregation, effectively out of communion. They were cut off from the
congregation, from the people and from access to the temple order – or salvation
itself. Don't de-covenantalise these passages by drawing some contrived analogy
with the modern secular state that would transform holy communion into
citizenship, the Christ anticipating and typological Levitical priesthood into
medical workers and state officials and the holy temple rites into meaningless
non-applicable trivialities.
The
Levites were to teach the people the difference between the holy and the
profane, between the things of God and the things were common, between things
pointing to the eternal and things temporal.
The
Mohlerian hermeneutic obliterates this reality by failing to recognise it and
by stripping the Old Testament text of its Christocentric typology and
rendering it as some kind of blueprint for the social order. This is to
profoundly miss the point.
The
authorities in Romans 13 are certainly instruments of Common Grace. I would
agree that the state serves a purpose that benefits humanity by restraining the
evil that would be unleashed if men were given free reign. I also agree that
the Church benefits from this in that we're able to go about our holy work and
thus it can be said that while Nero was terrible, he was better than an absence
of government, the very thing that happened to the empire in fifth century and
is happening today in places like Libya.
However,
Mohler is not keeping his discussion within the confines of common grace.
Rather by utilising Leviticus as an analogy he's calling on the state to
fulfill a holy role. The very lines between holy and profane are being blurred,
an interesting thing to contemplate when one considers the Levitical mandate.
And when
it comes to his argument that laws concerning the meeting of the Church are analogous
to speed limits and taxes, he's simply wrong. Again, I am glad that he's not
among those who attempt to delegitimise speed limits and taxes. He's not a
Libertarian. And yet, in this case he's wrong. When the state says that the
meeting of the Church is not an 'essential service' we're allowing the state to
categorise us as something like a business and we're allowing the state to tell
us what is and what isn't essential to our faith and service to God. The state
is also telling us that it determines when we worship and even can mandate
alternatives. I refer to state officials telling us to worship on Facebook or
whatever. That's transgressing a line and Mohler is demonstrating a real lack
of discernment at this point. He's mixing apples and oranges. I understand the
state is not setting out to shut down churches on the basis of trying to
suppress Christianity. Though some suggest that, I do not, at least not in the
United States.
However,
we need to wrest the argument away from the state and completely re-frame this
discussion in a different way. Churches may decide not to meet out of love for
neighbour but they also might decide to meet safely in defiance of the state in
order to pray, worship and commune. That's our decision, not the decision of
the state. Again, this isn't about the Constitution or rights. Those who employ
such arguments just muddy the waters. Those documents have nothing to do with
the Church. They never have, never will nor indeed could they.
Mohler
continues:
Love of neighbor means that we would not do
anything to compromise, weaken, or endanger our neighbor—and that certainly
includes our neighbor’s physical health.
But he
does not see that this argument when applied to society and used to empower the
state can be turned against us. I know people who argue that Christian
homeschooling is a threat to their health. Christians will likely produce
non-integrated adults who will undoubtedly oppose and be intolerant of certain
segments of society. As such they will not contribute to the common good, they
will move to shape laws that will ultimately deny health care to some and place
restrictions on others that they would deem harmful.
Now we may
reject that argument and consider it to be lame but it (and many others) could still
be made and even though it's born of a flawed and fallen way of thinking they
nevertheless could argue that it's in the state's interest to outlaw
homeschooling or private schooling and compel children to attend public schools
guaranteeing their integration and the overall health of society.
We rightly
reject that and would say that such an argument is a misapplication of 'love of
neighbour'. Ironically similar arguments were made by American Christians
against the immigrant populations in the late 19th and early 20th
century and on that basis they worked hard to make public education compulsory.
Of course the tables have been turned in almost poetic fashion.
So there
are lines that we draw. The question is where are those lines? And who has the
power to draw them? When it comes to the Church, the state doesn't even get a
place at the table. And it wouldn't but for the many compromised Christian
leaders who for the sake of financial benefit and social respectability have
invited the state in and give it a place at the table.
Mohler
supported Bush's invasion of Iraq. In that case he was more than willing to
harm his Iraqi neighbours as he did not condemn the US dropping bombs on them
and killing them. So he cannot honestly say that we wouldn't 'do anything to
harm a neighbour'. That's simply not true and thus the argument and the whole
discussion needs to be reframed.
He calls
us to be Biblical and clear-headed with regard to our duty and yet his muddled
hermeneutics, contrived theology, dubious and duplicitous ethics and the
confusion of the holy and covenantal with the profane and common leads us to a
very different place.