Tony Evans is the founder and pastor of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship in Dallas TX and the chairman of the executive council of The Gathering, a solemn assembly of pastors and Christians which took place yesterday. In his introduction to the day, Evans raised three possibilities regarding America. One is that Christ will return and set up His Kingdom. The second one is that America will be judged and taken off “the scene,” and a third is that American Christians pray and repent and change God’s mind about America’s demise. Watch:
Transcript:
There are 3 options before us. If Jesus comes back, we won’t worry about any of this. In the immediate future, it won’t be our problem. The second option is that our nation is under final judgment and so there is no hope.
But there is a third option. “If my people will call my name, shall humble themselves, turn from their wicked ways, and seek my face, I will heal them, and I will flow from them.” If Jesus doesn’t come back in the immediate future, that’s your children, and your grandchildren, and your great grand children, and they’re gonna live in some kind of land. Either it will be a land influenced by God’s people and godliness, or influence led and ruled by evil, and it all depends on the church.
Regularly, as Pastor Morris says, God say, I’m waiting on you. Moses, as he said, put out the rod, Joshua, tell the priest to put the water-put their foot in the water before I open up the Jordan River. Martha, pull the stone away, until you pull the stone away, I do not need a discussion on mortuary science, until you move the stone, you will not see what I am up to in secret, because you won’t do what I told you to do in public.
But when God’s presence and purpose is being manifested through his people, we give Him another option. And let me tell you how powerful this option is. If Christ be not come. It is such a powerful option that if we gave-give God our undivided attention and undivided focus, it is such a powerful option that we can literally change God’s mind, on earth about what He had previously decided to do from eternity. Throughout the Bible, you will see God changing His mind. So even if Option 2 is on the plate, to remove America off the scene, Christ be not come, let’s go about changing God’s mind. Let’s do what we do like Moses did when God said He would destroy Israel and Moses pled that would mess up your reputation, and when He heard his prayer, He changed his mind. God is flexible. Let’s appeal to that flexibility.
Evans raises all kinds of theological issues which I won’t comment on at this point. My interest is more with what Evans thinks will trigger God’s cosmic mind change.
Evans misquotes II Chronicles 7:14 (bold print above) as a proof that God will change his mind if we pray and repent. The verse in full goes like this:
If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.
I have never understood why people mistake this as a promise to America. American citizens are not His people called by God’s name. This verse is not addressed to Americans. This verse is the second half of a sentence started in verse 13 and concerns the dedication of the Jewish temple led by King Solomon.
11 When Solomon had finished the temple of the Lord and the royal palace, and had succeeded in carrying out all he had in mind to do in the temple of the Lord and in his own palace,12 the Lord appeared to him at night and said:
“I have heard your prayer and have chosen this place for myself as a temple for sacrifices. 13 “When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command locusts to devour the land or send a plague among my people,14 if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.15 Now my eyes will be open and my ears attentive to the prayers offered in this place.16 I have chosen and consecrated this temple so that my Name may be there forever. My eyes and my heart will always be there.
God made an agreement with Solomon regarding Israel. On behalf of America, who made such a covenant?
This promise was made in a very specific way to Solomon about the very homogeneous Jewish nation. Despite a majority Christian population, there is no civil requirement to keep Christian morality. There is no civil requirement to even be a Christian to serve in government. It is very simple, these verses have nothing to do with us. We are not a new Israel.
There is nothing wrong with praying and repenting. However, a nation such as ours doesn’t do it, people do.
Yesterday, GOP activist David Barton delivered a speech to the Dallas Eagle Forum. In it, he said that Christian have a responsibility to vote for Donald Trump (see the Right Wing Watch segment). Barton is now downplaying Trump’s failings by saying the character of the leaders is not important, the person’s policies are what is important. Watch this video on that point. He says, “Righteousness is the public policies you have” as opposed to the leaders who may or may not be righteous.
This is a switch for Barton who has always advised his audiences to vote for people of good character.
God ordained the institutions of civil government and it’s the Bible that provides us with clear guidance about electing God-fearing leaders of moral character and wise judgment. In fact, it’s our duty as Christians to elect such leaders, for Proverbs 29:2 tells us that “When the RIGHTEOUS rule, the people rejoice. But when the WICKED rule, the people groan.” Or, to put it simply, when people of faith elect God-honoring representatives and government, all of America benefits. As Christians, we must take this to heart and vote in the coming elections.
On his website, Barton provides numerous admonitions from early Americans to vote for people of high moral character. For instance, Barton’s citation of Noah Webster is on point.
Noah Webster
In selecting men for office, let principle be your guide. Regard not the particular sect or denomination of the candidate – look to his character. . . . When a citizen gives his suffrage to a man of known immorality he abuses his trust; he sacrifices not only his own interest, but that of his neighbor, he betrays the interest of his country.
[Noah Webster, Letters to a Young Gentleman Commencing His Education to which is subjoined a Brief History of the United States (New Haven: S. Converse, 1823), pp. 18, 19.]
When you become entitled to exercise the right of voting for public officers, let it be impressed on your mind that God commands you to choose for rulers, “just men who will rule in the fear of God.” The preservation of government depends on the faithful discharge of this duty; if the citizens neglect their duty and place unprincipled men in office, the government will soon be corrupted; laws will be made, not for the public good so much as for selfish or local purposes; corrupt or incompetent men will be appointed to execute the laws; the public revenues will be sqandered on unworthy men; and the rights of the citizens will be violated or disregarded. If a republican government fails to secure public prosperity and happiness, it must be because the citizens neglect the divine commands, and elect bad men to make and administer the laws.
[Noah Webster, History of the United States (New Haven: Durrie & Peck, 1832), pp. 336-337]
I like the Webster quote where he says, “let principle be your guide.” To paraphrase Webster, I do not support Trump or Clinton because I don’t want to betray the interest of my country. If we neglect principle, corrupt people will be placed in power. Given the available choices, I think we are about to test that theory.
In my opinion, if Barton, Metaxas, Jeremiah, and Graham and their compadres really believed their principles, they would be getting behind a third party candidate with a mighty effort to throw the election into the House of Representatives. If there was ever an election when the Christian right could have delivered a message that the GOP has taken it for granted, this one is it.
Last Thursday, David Barton and the gang on Wallbuilders Live talked about the Bible and economics. During the segment, Barton claimed that Right Wing Watch bloggers criticized his views because they have not read their Bibles. He also mentioned me by name as a Christian professor who also criticized his biblical views. RWW has the audio and transcript. I am going to include the whole segment on Mt. 20 (from 5:00 to about 10:00 on the original), including where Tim Barton implies Ben Carson is wrong in his interpretation of Mt. 20.
Transcript:
David Barton: Right Wing Watch listens to every program we do and they make fun of me because Barton says the Bible addresses the minimum wage. It is highly unlikely that they even know what’s in the Bible. But they’re making fun, oh the Bible doesn’t deal with…yes, the Bible does deal with that. And the concept of a free market means free from government regulation. A minimum wage is the government telling you what minimum wage you have to pay to someone. So let me take you to Matthew 20 for just a moment and look how the Bible is specific even on something like freedom of wages, the viability of employer-employee contracts.
From 41 seconds to 2:11, Barton tells the story of Matthew 20:1-16. At 2:12, Tim Barton interrupts and asks:
Tim Barton: But wait a minute, isn’t that why it’s socialism, because they all got the same thing? David Barton: They all got the same thing! Tim Barton: They all were paid the same no matter how long you worked. Everybody makes the same. David Barton: And some of them put in more hours than others but they all got the same. But this one guy says but wo, wo, wo, wo, wo, wait, but I’ve been here longer. He says now wait a minute, didn’t you tell me at the beginning, you were willing to work for me all day long for that silver coin? Tim Barton: So you agreed to that! David Barton: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I did agree to that and then in Matthew 20:15, Jesus says, ‘Is not my money to do with as I please? I’m the employer. Don’t I get to decide what I’m going to pay everyone in this thing?'” No, no, no, the government has a minimum wage. No it didn’t. Jesus says, ‘My money is mine to do with as I please and, by the way, you made a contract with them.’ And then he tells the guy, ‘If you didn’t like the contract, you can go down the road to another vineyard and see if they’ll pay you two silver coins for what you did, but you agreed to work for me for that.'”
So what you have here is Jesus says, ‘The government doesn’t tell me how much to spend, I get to choose my own wages and, two, if you choose to work for me for that, you have an agreement, we have a contract; and three is if you’ve got greater skill, you can sell it to somebody else for a higher price, you can go down the road.’ That’s all free market stuff, there’s no government regulation of wages; and by the way, Right Wing Watch, that is the minimum wage. Government doesn’t tell you want to pay an employee, you make a contract with that individual for whatever they agree on and what you agree on, and if the don’t like that, they can use the free market to go somewhere else and try to get more. All of that is in Matthew 20. That is a great story of socialism versus free market. Tim Barton: This is not just news for Right Wing Watch, but that too many Christians don’t what this is either. (crosstalk) David Barton: Oh yeah, because Warren Throckmorton, Christian professor also makes fun of me for saying that. He’s a Christian professor. Tim Barton: You go down the list. Even people that would support us. You have people even like Ben Carson that says well, socialism that he seems to think based on this that everybody should get it. There’s Christians across the board that has a very different idea of what this says if they even know what this says, probably at Right Wing Watch they probably don’t know what this says much less understand the interpretation.
Barton teaches that Matthew 20 teaches economic policy about the minimum wage, employer contracts, and employer control of wages. Since the vineyard owner paid everyone what he wanted to pay, Barton reasons that the government can’t tell private business owners how much to pay their employees.
I can’t find a prior post where I disagree with Barton on Matthew 20 (although I certainly do). I have taken issue with his interpretation of various Bible passages but I don’t recall writing about the minimum wage. In any case, I do think he is wrong as do some people who I am pretty sure have read the Bible more than me.
I asked several Bible teachers about Matthew 20. I asked what the parable teaches and if it teaches that governments may not institute a minimum wage. Here are their replies:
Joe Carter, Senior Editor for the Acton Institute.
Our task as interpreters of parables is to find how the relevant meaning of the story applies in our own context. And while Jesus frequently referred to money and economics in his parables, never is the point of any parable to teach us about monetary or economic policy.
The illustrations used in parables are not meant to be normative, though I do believe they can be instructive. For example, since Jesus would not use a positive example that was based on injustice or evil, we can assume that there is nothing inherently wrong with negotiating with people to pay different wages — even for the same type of labor. However, that does not mean that we must take this illustration as a normative basis for personal ethics, much less as a direct claim about government policy.
Also, the statement in verse 14 — “Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money?” — has to be read in a broader context. As the Bible makes clear, we don’t have an absolute right to do what we want with our own money (c.f., Mark 12:17), so it can’t mean that the landowner can do anything he wants. What about the broader context? We don’t know what the economic context even is — probably because it was unimportant to Jesus’ point. We don’t know, for instance, if in this parable the denarius was the government required “minimum wage” for a day’s labor.
There are many prudential reasons for opposing the minimum wage. I oppose it myself because I believe there is evidence that it harms, more than helps, many economically vulnerable groups (low-skilled workers, young African American males, non-native English speakers, etc.). But while my motivation for opposing the minimum wage (i.e., a concern for helping the poor) is based on the Bible, there is nothing in Scripture that directly supports my policy preference, much less forbids a government from instituting a minimum wage. Adam Dolhanyk, Cornerstone Ministries:
I’ve never read a commentary or heard a sermon that taught anything other than a direct analogy to the kingdom of Heaven; as you said, both regarding Jews & Gentiles as well as people who come to faith early in life vs late in life. Kevin Labby, Pastor, Willow Creek Presbyterian Church, Winter Springs, FL
There is great temptation to read into the parables things never intended by Jesus. The meaning or, in some cases, meanings of parables are made apparent by examining things like the historical context, prologue (cf. Lk. 18:1; 9), epilogue (cf. Mt. 13:36-43; Mk. 14:13-20), a direct interpretation by Jesus (cf. Mt. 13:18-23; 36-43) and a natural reading of the surrounding biblical context. Regarding this, Dodd adds:
The task of the interpreter of the parables is to find out, if he can, the setting of the parable in the situation contemplated by the Gospels, and hence the application which would suggest itself to one who stood in that situation.*
It’s pretty clear to me that Matthew 19:30 and 20:16 serve as bookends of sorts for this parable. Through the parable, Jesus clearly and simply intends to illustrate the principle that “the last shall be first and the first shall be last.”
Finally in my opinion, this parable has nothing to do with clarifying specific or even general principles of economic justice. That seems entirely forced, and might in fact prove too much. If Jesus intended to communicate principles of economic justice by this parable, one might note that the owner uses his liberty to lavish his wealth on the undeserving, not keep it from them.
* C. H. Dodd, The Parables of the Kingdom (N. Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1961), p. 14. Russell Moore, President of the Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission:
The account in Matthew 20 is a parable, in which Jesus is teaching the kingdom of God and how it is entered. It has no more to do with setting economic policies for nations than Matt. 18:33-34 has in setting up debtors’ prisons. Justin Taylor, Executive V.P., Crossway Books
Evangelical New Testament scholar Craig Blomberg, of Denver Seminary, has authored what has become a standard book on the parables, arguing that many of Jesus’s parables have three main points (one per main character). In his analysis of this parable, he shows that the three groups of characters in this parable all deal with the unifying theme of “the status of individuals before God at the final judgment.” The three main points are as follows, according to Blomberg:
From the earlier groups of workers, one learns that none of God’s people will be treated unfairly (cf. v. 4—”whatever is right I will give you”); that is, no one will be shortchanged.
From the last group of workers comes the principle that many seemingly less deserving people will be treated generously, due to the sovereign free choice of God.
From the unifying role of the master stems the precious truth that all true disciples are equal in God’s eyes. [my emphasis]
What Barton seems to miss is that Jesus is using a fictional story to paint a picture of God’s rule and reign (“the kingdom of heaven is like…”). The result is a portrait of the way God acts with his people. It has virtually nothing to do, one way or another, with whether it is wise, moral, or legal for a secular government to establish a threshold for employers remunerating workers. I happen to think such laws often have the ironic and unintended consequence of hurting the poor they purport to help (contra Prov. 14:31). But it is anachronistic eisegesis to think one can get a good argument about minimum wage from Matthew 20:1–16. If we think that Jesus is doling out economics lessons here, why couldn’t we make the case instead that he was a socialist, paying everyone the same wage no matter how long they work?
Taylor’s final question highlights a critical pitfall of looking at Bible stories written for one purpose (to illustrate what the Kingdom of Heaven is like) to teach public policy lessons in the present. One may find several contradictory lessons depending on what part of the story you examine. On that point, Ryan Kearns, pastor at Redemption Church in Seattle, WA sent along a link to an 2009 article by A.B. Caneday, Professor of New Testament Studies & Biblical Theology at Northwestern College (MN) on the parable. Caneday wrote:
By telling the vineyard parable Jesus offers no commentary upon human contractual work relationships of his day, whether they are just or unjust.24 (page 37)
Efforts to domesticate these unexpected features derive from hearing without adequate discernment. Jesus’ purpose is not socio-political. He is not overturning human employment practices by imposing a new ethic to govern hiring contracts so that all workers should receive the same pay for unequal duration of labor. Jesus’ parable is an earthly story that figuratively portrays things heavenly, not earthly. (page 38)
By the way, Right Wing Watch apparently has read the passage. Kyle Mantyla’s take on the passage sounds remarkably like our conservative Christian Bible teachers above.
The problem here isn’t just that Barton eisegetes the passage (reads into it), it is that he ridicules those who see it differently than him by accusing them of biblical ignorance. For Barton, people who disagree with his novel biblical interpretations are ignorant liberal enemies of God. I think it will be hard to reconcile his attitude with the information presented by the scholars who have commented on this post.
I want to thank the Bible teachers and pastors quoted in the post who responded to my request for assistance.
I had hopes Better for America would be able to recruit a candidate to mount a serious conservative third party challenge. It didn’t happen. This came on August 23. I have since learned that BFA had ballot access in AR, NM and that Evan McMullin will appear on the AR ballot thanks to being nominated by BFA. McMullin is now on the ballot in AR, CO, IA, ID, LA, MN and UT.
To Our Dear Supporters and Volunteers,
This movement was for you, and created by the many ways you came alongside us in the fight to demand more from our presidential candidates in 2016.
Better For America was launched against the backdrop of deeply divisive campaigns of the two most unpopular presidential candidates in modern history, and the widespread dissatisfaction of the American electorate. The mission of BFA was to keep the electoral window open through the summer, and allow a leader to emerge to restore honor, integrity, and unifying and principled leadership.
To advance that objective, BFA conducted extensive conversations with dozens of current or former senators, governors, congressmen, Cabinet members, and military leaders, as well as establishing a foundation for ballot access across the country.
While polling continues to show that the electorate is dissatisfied with both candidates, and believes the country to be on the wrong track, the opportunity for BFA to influence this election cycle has diminished over the summer months, and BFA has therefore ended its candidate recruitment and ballot access efforts.
BFA continues to believe in the potential for leaders to emerge and address the ongoing political crisis, and will continue to pursue constitutional litigation to pave a path to ballot access. Further, in states in which Better For America has established ballot access, it will follow its nomination process.
Better For America was launched with two convictions. First, that our country needs and deserves better than the current leadership alternatives, and second, that it is always valuable to promote integrity, honor, and principles, no matter what the social and political headwinds, or the costs incurred. We believed that if we promoted these ideas in public and private discourse, we could help catalyze a meaningful movement of financial and political leaders responding to the current crisis. While we are disappointed that we didn’t see the leadership response we anticipated, we are encouraged by the many Americans who supported us in our efforts. These great Americans will remain committed to restoring integrity, honor and principled leadership to our country, and Better For America remains committed to supporting them in these efforts.
With many thanks for your contributions and dedication to the United States, John Kingston, III
Founder and Chair, Better For America http://www.betterforamerica.com/
James Dobson, who is this year supporting Donald Trump, voted for Howard Phillips instead of the GOP nominee Bob Dole in 1996. This year various Christian leaders want all Christians to fall in line behind Donald Trump. Janet Porter is the latest far right crusader who exhorts Christians to vote for Trump.
Theology professor Wayne Grudem told us voting for Trump is a moral choice. In 1998, Grudem raised a standard for elective office that he has now repudiated. This year Dobson isn’t protesting but it was okay in 1996.
Why isn’t it an acceptable choice for evangelicals to protest vote in 2016?
Of course, it is acceptable, even honorable to vote one’s conscience. Between now and election day, Christians will be pressured to fall in line with the GOP. We should vote our convictions. My conviction is not to vote for someone who is unfit. In my mind, that conviction eliminates Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. Oddly enough, I am on the same team as Glenn Beck in this matter. I wonder if he minds having a “liberal bastard” on his team.
I am still exploring options but have no plans to vote for either of two majors.
In my mind, the two party system hasn’t served the people well. I think it is time to invest in alternative parties and even if I vote GOP in the future, I will not discourage anyone from expressing their freedom of conscience in a third party way.