The Church is not a Democracy

Recently our government here in Britain invited members of the public to suggest which laws they would like to see abolished. Predictably someone suggested the law of gravity. There's always one, isn't there?

Now, in a democracy, laws change. Drivers are no longer forced to be preceded by a man with a red flag (and a good thing too!). Dog owners no longer need a licence for most breeds, I don't need a licence for my aged Phillips Stealla radio. And in a democracy, the will of the majority is behind changes to the law. That is all well and good - in a democracy.

The church, however, is not a democracy. The Kingdom of God is a monarchy, and not a limited constitutional monarchy either! So the laws are not up for re-negotiation. The Episcopal Church USA has forgotten this in its mad dash to look just like the most liberal part of western culture, and the Church of England is not far behind. To be honest, if a man can be a clergyman and deny every essential tenet of the faith, I'm not going to get too excited just because suddenly a man who lives with another man as with a woman can be a bishop. They began with a doctrinal down-grade, it does not surprise me that "Where there is no revelation the people cast off all restraint." The will of God trumps the will of the majority every time, especially in the church. Now, one can go off and join the Unitarians, or found your own little group, if you think that Christianity's wrong, but please, don't call yourself a Christian! If you (British language coming up here) say you are a republican, but uphold the monarchy, you are not "a new kind of republican", you are a monarchist!

And this goes for all God has said. Norman Geisler is trying to defend Ergun Caner, but has actually ended up saying that lying is acceptable if it is "one of us" who lies. No, lying is never acceptable, especially if it is "one of us" who is guilty of it. Lying is a sin! But Geisler is bending over backwards to deny that Caner ever did anything wrong. Liberty University beg to differ, and I would not be at all surprised if Caner was no longer on faculty there in the 2011-12 academic year.

We are not at liberty to re-write any of God's laws, for any reason. Not even because we're sure he's a nice man and a friend. Now, is Jeffrey John's situation worse than Caner's? In one way, yesm because Jeffrey John is an apostate. But in another sense, both involve men flouting God's law, and others covering up for them. And now I need to see about the sparrow that just did a Kamikaze run on my study window.