principles

Law as a Tool, Not a Tyrant: Reclaiming the Spirit of Justice

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There are many ways to get things wrong and one of those ways is to detach the law from its most foundational purpose.  That is a part of a legalistic mindset—which always will end up producing bad interpretation and misapplication of law.  

Law is not an entity separate unto itself or something stand alone.  It is a political tool, a guide or instrument for application of an agreed upon principle or cultural value, and application of the intended use requires a common set of assumptions to the creator.  It cannot float in space—never treated as an independent truth—it must be moored to a mission or the common good.

It’s the law!!!

I’ve been in conversations recently where some involved are in denial of the political nature of the law and treat it as if the words on a page somehow have their own life.  It is a misunderstanding of language.  There is nothing static or unassailable about any written code.  Everything depends on having an interpreter with values they are similar or basically the same as the originator of the law—the power of law, therefore, is in the interpretation and application.

When a person assumes that the law can speak for itself they’re delusional, they don’t grasp what law is or what it is for at a very basic level and end up using it to create a system of legalistic prescription rather than understand it through a practical lens.  They have essentially made dead words (applied in any way they want or are most familiar with) a focus rather than cutting through to the underlying principles that make correct application possible.  Their obsession over the letter of the law comes at the expense of following the spirit behind it.

Most people can’t read cursive let alone know what the founders truly intended.

This is what the Pharisees did and Jesus corrected.  He didn’t question the legality of his servants breaking Sabbath rules, rather he gave an example of when David did what was unlawful (only lawful for the priests) to show exceptional circumstances allowed a written law to be set aside.  It is at this point Jesus declared: “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” (Mark 2:27 NIV)  This is a higher principle not ever stated in the law but describes a purpose of the law that cannot be separated from the application.

Biblical law may not be relevant to matters of the US Constitution, but both the law of Moses and the law of the Constitution were established to safeguard a nation.  It was a law for the common good of the people and not something absolutely set in stone.  And, in fact, in the earliest days of the US, it was a matter of disagreement how much power should be in the judiciary—which led to the Judiciary Act of 1802 and to courts being dissolved by Thomas Jefferson.  

The point being is the law can’t be properly handled apart from the foundation it is built upon.  Law should serve the common good and needs a reset if it goes astray and ends up becoming a cumbersome burden that is in the way of pragmatic concerns.  Letter of the law people enforce a system for sake of the system alone—they claim the slightest deviation will destroy everything good and right—and end up with ridiculous results.

Don’t cross the street!

Suppose a child is told not to cross a street by their parent.  It is a busy highway and too risky for them to cross.  That’s the law and it is a good one.  However, if some unusual event were to happen, a real emergency, is it important that the child remain on their side of the road even at risk of death?

Those on the legalistic side would argue the law is what it is.  And that making a change based on this circumstance will only lead to more exceptions being made until nothing is left.  This is a slippery slope fallacy based on an assumption there is no authority that is higher than the law and that the system we is basically optimized.  But this idea that the current regime represents some perfect balance that should not ever be challenged is dumb.  There is nothing sacrosanct about the current business as usual.

Many today catastrophize about the end of the US Constitution like they did under Lincoln.

A system of checks and balances requires some dispute and conflict.  Activist judges that obstruct the role of elected leaders— with an ever expanding definition of “due process” at our expense—hinder progress and might need to be checked.  

Worse yet, when the attention is selective.  It is nothing but loopholes for some and the lawfare for others.  Which is the irony of legalists.  They apply a withering standard for others while always finding exemptions for themselves—they may declare “nobody is above the law” and yet are always given an excuse when it is their turn.

There is a place for precedent or principle, tradition is a better guide than ideology, but then there is a time when a deterioration of values and good faith application bogs the country down and justice becomes slave to a system of perverse priorities.  It is when the application of law no longer serves the common good, but only the lawyers, corrupt prosecutors and jurists who all gain at our expense.  The legal experts claim to uphold the law and yet undermine public trust with their shenanigans that defy our values.

Lawless regimes

Law is a tool, and the hands wielding it are what matter more than what is written in it.  Words on a page are a weak defense when those tasked with applying them are evil or compromised.  A hammer can be used by a carpenter to build or by a criminal to kill and law is no different.  A nation of attorneys is potentially as lawless as country without a written law and enforcement mechanism—our moral constitution matters more than a jot and tittle legalism.

Jesus took on the legal system of his day and not to abolish the law.  No, he exposed the experts.  They strained on gnats while swallowing camels, missed the forest for the trees, and are like those today who will punish us with regulations while rewarding those who flout our laws.  We are shown no mercy while simultaneously the favorites of the political establishment need not worry about a day in court.  Law for thee, not for me.  It serves the elites, not the people.

Law is about setting boundaries and due process depends on the situation.  When the British invaded, in 1812, there was never a thought of applying the Bill of Rights for those who rose in defense of the nation.  In times of war the due process is pointing rifles at the invader.  And foreign gang members who crossed into this country illegally shouldn’t be allowed to abuse asylum laws.  Abraham Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus or due process for citizens during the Civil War—a free ride home for non-citizens is a great deal compared to Union Army detention.

Lincoln was hated by Democrats for his use of executive power

Having dealt with the USCIS, I am not a big fan of paperwork and most especially not when they offhandedly reject your mother-in-law’s tourist visa (as they have done for years, see the time stamps) after all the fees are paid and a visit to the US embassy—and you can rest assured there is no grandstanding by US politicians about due process and assumed right to be in the country on the behalf of those who do it the right way. 

No law might be more fair than our currently convoluted regime—that does many times more to protect gang members than grandmas merely wanting to visit their children or grandchildren.  Sure, we can’t take lawful order for granted and we deal with this inconvenience for the sake of stability and security, but when we show excess concern for those who broke the law while then applying the letter to those trying to abide by it the law has become an immoral instrument and the current corrupt application of law should be set aside for a saner approach.

The perfect law is no law… 

In an ideal world there would be no laws, no borders, no governments.  Instead we would have a law written on hearts—where we voluntarily only do good for people based on internalized values—and have no need for legislation, enforcement or courts.  Borders would be unnecessary and airport screening an unthinkable invasive of personal space.   This is why we have a Bill of Rights to limit the power of government—more law tends to increase injustice rather than serve the common good. 

In the end, just as the Judiciary Act of 1802 sought to realign the law with the common good by curbing an overreaching judiciary, we must continually ensure that our laws remain tools for justice, tethered to their foundational purpose of serving us, not as rigid idols that enslave us to legalism.  We need to understand the limits of resources and get our priorities right.

What Thomas Sowell (and Libertarians) Get Wrong About Trump’s Tariffs

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The point of Trump’s tariffs is to get rid of all tariffs.  I can feel the blank stares of my ideological and indoctrinated friends who are hyperventilating about a blip in stock prices and loses for billionaires.  

I get it, Libertarians, you really do not want the government to do anything and Thomas Sowell said stuff about tariffs being bad, so in unison you bleat: “Tariffs are taxes!”

But your sloganeering is not argumentation and—while I generally believe less is more in the case of government—I’m stuck here in the real world with Trump.

Economic theory has it’s place, as do ideals, and yet this isn’t a matter of Sowell said it, I believe it, that settles it.  

Marxists also believe their man’s theory will work if properly applied.  Ideological people can’t accept when their theory doesn’t work in reality, they will always insist “that wasn’t true [insert ideology here]” and continue on their merry way muttering that next time it will work—if they could just brainwash more children and eliminate more enemies of the revolution.  There’s never a reevaluation in light of the actual evidence.

True X hasn’t been tried.

So, without further ado, let’s dive into where free trade fails and Thomas Sowell after we do that…

Can Hell Be Made Worse?

After the devastating earthquake of 2010, I joined a group of young people on a trip to Haiti.  It was a Christian mission and hosted by a Haitian pastor.  This grandfatherly man had, at one point, been in business and ran a factory manufacturing clothes.  

While I’m not going to make a case against charity or giving, there is often a cost that is unseen and a greater dependency created in the end.  The Haitian pastor was forced to shutter his operation and lay off all of his employees after the combination of cheap imports and donations made it impossible to compete in the marketplace.

But the even sadder story was in a place in the country called “little Africa” where rice farmers tried to make ends meet.  No, they were never rich.  However, they had scraped a living out of cultivation up until Bill Clinton started to dump subsidized American rice on the Haitian market.  These people were desperate.  They mobbed our delivery of a bit of relief and aid.

I know, I know, this isn’t real free trade.  But it is the kind of situation we are in.  Putting our favorite theories and fandom aside, and ideals that could possibly work if all abided by the same rules or assumptions, we don’t live in that fantasy land.  In the real world, it is like Haiti where subsidized products are exported and some will disproportionately suffer consequences.  

Yes, in theory, Haiti still benefits, as a whole, from importing cheap or free stuff.  But we can also make the argument that this kind of unfair trade has undermined a situation that was already fragile.  A government that would protect Haitian industries would not let subsidized products be dumped without something stabilizing in return.

Thomas Sowell vs Donald Trump 

Sowell is a great economist and provides a good answer to ‘progressive’ theories.  His being a guest on the Rush Limbaugh show has made him a favorite of conservatives—wanting validation for their free market and small government views.

As an academic, Sowell’s work dealt mostly with economic theory and to argue against all tariffs he uses abstraction “protectionism hurts market efficiency” and that they don’t solve issues like wealth gap, that they favor special interests, and retaliation against tariffs hurts exports, and they lead to long-term stagnation.  And he may be right if we lived in a vacuum sealed petri dish.

Trump, by contrast, lives in the very messy world of politics and negotiations.  He runs on instincts and intuition, not by intellectual exercises or writing papers or creating a set of principles.  He comes in with the big ask, the threat or the bluff, trying to disrupt and even create a bit of anxiety in the other side, before eventually bringing this process to a resolution that makes all parties leave with a feeling like they’ve won.

This is how we got from the “fire and fury” rhetoric—with the political class and corporate media hyperventilating about this being a path to war—to Trump being the first US President to set foot in North Korea and then shaking hand of Kim Jong Un.  It is just his method of changing the conversation or moving the Overton window.  You can’t get from point A to point B without shaking up the old status quo a bit.

Trump isn’t ideological, like Sowell, or trying to live off a written in stone economic code of conduct.  No, when he has leverage, or sees an opportunity, he uses it.  There are many countries tariffing US goods.  And our trade deficit is enormous.  So why is it so out of line for our President to cry foul or use the threat of reciprocal tariffs in other to back these countries down and then get a better deal for his country?

Surely Sowell isn’t against pushing for the elimination of tariffs—which likely is the end game.  And, furthermore, Trump’s brazen actions are far more likely to get results than the fine professor’s best lecture on economics.  Already other countries are lining up to start talks about removing their unfair tariffs against the US.  It is a game of musical chairs and you don’t want to be the last one looking for a seat.

Power, Principles, and Persuasion 

Marxism is about the application of power, Libertarians are about strict adherence to a set of principles, but Trump is different.  He is about persuasion.

Marxism is a hammer—raw power of the mob, trying to smashing the old order to hand control to the workers, or so it claims. In reality, it’s a machine for centralization: seize the levers, dictate terms, and dress it up as justice. Think Soviet bread lines or Mao’s famines—equality morphing into control. Libertarians, by contrast, wield a rulebook, not a fist. Their creed—liberty, markets, entirely hands off—is sacred, rigid as stone. Tariffs? Sacrilege. Sowell represents this.  Marxism a power grab, and libertarianism a fortress of unattainable ideals—both are better to be left as theory rather than an approach to real world negotiations.

Marxism would’ve sparked a trade war, not talks; libertarianism would’ve let markets bleed out. Trump’s different—he’s making countries dance. China grumbles but hints at softening; the EU’s haggling too. Stocks have dipped, and Sowell’s costs loom, but the moves are now undeniable: Vietnam’s concessions, India’s play, Japan’s hustle. It’s not a system winning—it’s Trump, raw and loud, proving persuasion trumps power or principle. He’s bending the world his way, one bluff at a time.  He is about persuasion—messy, unscripted, a vibe that bends the room.  

Tariffs are the threat, but trade that is truly free and fair is the actual goal.  And Trump is further along in achieving this simply for his boldness alone.  Maybe he’s not doing it the ‘right’ way or by conventional means, yet who says that we can’t try a new approach to get some better results than we’ve been getting?  The people who have been leaving the American worker behind tot decades now?  As my 13-year-old son would say: Let him cook!

The Rise of the Christian Influencer

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The man had charisma.  He wore a swanky grey sport coat and a shiny pair of quality brown dress shoes, that all went along with his well-manicured hair.  He stood out in this crowd of mostly Amish gathered for the seminar. 

I tend not to pay for such things.  I have a knack for learning through non-conventional means, namely running into walls until I get to the correct answer, and have also learned quite a bit from observation.  My own ticket had been provided by my company and I was there with the rest of the office staff to hear what this life-coaching speaker had to say about customer service and listening. 

The content was good.  It seemed worthwhile advice for those seeking to improve their customer experience and grow their business.  However, I kept thinking about the Christian themes mixed into his message.  This son of a missionary did not preach a sermon nor did he mention the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  Still, there was definitely an attempt to relate to the audience at a level of their religious values.

This sort of thing, good or bad, seems like the latest development in Christian missions.  In times past, the church was the church, those ordained and sent were more open about their underlying goals, urging repent and be baptized, and those personally profiting off the message were condemned:

“Unlike so many, we do not peddle the word of God for profit. On the contrary, in Christ we speak before God with sincerity, as those sent from God.”

(2 Corinthians 2:17 NIV)

Now, the man before us, he represented a non-profit entity and was giving advice that pertained to sales and serving customers.  Still, he did reference Scripture amongst his quotes of self-improvement gurus and even used the phrase “word of God” at one point in his presentation.  He would use our familiarity with the “good book” to bolster his claims and even shared some theological perspective. 

Again, I have no problem with this man nor the particular presentation.  In the business world this kind of consulting and advice is likely key to reaching the next level of sales and I’m sure we will do many of the things that he recommended.

However, what did stand out, and is the reason for writing this blog, is this trend towards a mission of influence rather than open proclaiming of the Gospel and, in many ways, I was at the forefront of this evolution.  My blogs, often a mix of theology, philosophy, and personal observation, is not openly declared as a Christian mission.  Still, I have used this media, and my understanding of Scripture, to do pretty much the same thing (minus the monetization) of this life coach of Anabaptist background.

So here’s some thoughts…

Where Did It All Begin?

The church has always had influential men and inspiring women.  Some rose in prominence, even have their writings and stories recorded in the canon of Scripture for our benefit.  The Orthodox have many noteworthy figures, Early Church Fathers, including St John Chrysostom, the archbishop of Constantinople, a man who took on the abuses of ecclesiastical and political authorities of his own time, and whose Divine Liturgy we celebrate to this very day, his name means “golden-mouthed” in Greek and he definitely had a way with words to match the description.

However, those in Scripture, as well as St John Chrysostom, were themselves all under the authority and guidance of the other Christians.  They were also very open about their mission.  They were unabashed preachers of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  They weren’t your life coach using Christian themes to decorate a business oriented daylong consulting session for $150 a head.  St Paul may have made tents to support himself and his ministry, yet I’m not sure that he sold them using Christian themes.  Just saying.  His ministry was ministry and business was business.

But there is a sort of murkiness to many modern-day efforts, where they aren’t part of the church per se nor even announcing themselves as a ministry, and it is by design.  So how did we get here?

The starting point of the current Western paradigm is obviously the Protestant schism with the leadership in Rome.  The intention of Martin Luther, ordained by the Roman Catholic Church, was not to start a denomination.  He wanted reforms and had good reason for his critiques.  And yet his written protests quickly became a catalyst, many took things much further than he had ever intended and we have the multitude of denominations as his most significant accomplishment.

Still, despite this, the church, even or especially with those of the radical reformation, remained a collection of individuals with accountability to each other.  Sure, the Anabaptists were more localized, led by shared statements of faith, and collectively agreed upon congregational rules rather than by a hierarchical structure, but it was never every-man-for-himself or a free-for-all.  Those who spoke were ordained by various means, not simply a man full of his own ideas and finding a following.

The turning point? 

I think around the turn of the last century represents a shift.  The whole tent revival circuit, where a dynamic speaker, an Evangelist, would get up in front of the crowd and wow the audience with his polished salvation message.  Many were sold the Gospel in this manner, walked the sawdust trail, the circus would eventually leave town and life would go back to normal or the new normal, I suppose?

The next stage in development was the parachurch missionary organization.  By parachurch, these organizations are run seperately from the denomination, are often subject only to their own board members, and seek funding for themselves.  Basically, any ambitious person, with some natural musical or speaking talent, interested in travel, can start a prison ministry, missionary training institute or what have you, and only with as much ties to the existing church structure as they want.  All one must do is set up their nonprofit, find investors, buy the bus, and be on their way to preach the word as their adoring wife glows beside them.

Yet, as all things, the traveling Evangelist and other obvious Christian missionary efforts, including openly Christian contemporary artists, have become tired old tropes.  The in-your-face presentation, the lack of follow-up or one-dimensionality of the presentation, the realization that the novelty had worn off of the original form, the scams, and scandals, has led to a third wave of influencer and that’s the one that doesn’t even announce the Christian intentions at all.

Sometimes this lack of openly expressed intention is to avoid legal prohibition.  For example, teaching English in Asian countries that would not otherwise invite Christian missionaries.  Other times it is to add a practical element, after preaching and charities failed to help solve many underlying conditions, which gave rise to micro-lending groups.  Sometimes this repackaging is to sell the mission itself as something exciting, an adventure rather than some kind of dull service opportunity, and part of an effort to make Christianity relevant to the next generation.

After watching the presentation the other day, I suggested to a left-leaning Mennonite friend that we go on tour together for sake of racial reconciliation and healing.  Why not?  I think I could probably work the crowd, with a little practice, and definitely believe in the cause, could leading faith-related seminars be my calling too?

In theory, this cause-oriented Christian influencer thing seems great.  We can have sportsman’s banquets, business seminars, and TED Talk the unsuspecting heathens (or even the more traditional religious types) with a flashy Powerpoint presentation, funny stories and down to earthiness.  And yet, this does seem to get things out of order, it puts values first and repentance second. 

More troubling, from the Evangelist of the past century, to parachurch missionary organization of the past decades, to the influencers of the present, the distance between the activity and actual purpose has grown.  The Evangelist preached without providing adequately in discipleship.  The missionary went without being sent or accountable to the church.  And the motivational speaker, while referencing the Bible, never announced a Christian intention.  And it makes me wonder, how far can we detach values or ministries from the Church, and cause of Christ, before it becomes entirely self-interested and divorced from Christ?

At what point is it all just a moneymaking scheme, devoid of actual spiritual substance?

I mean, we’ve all seen it, the shyster, the con man, the ministry with a board of directors full of families and “yes man” friends, the Televangelist, the guy selling a product, an ideology, a Ponzi scheme.  There is sometimes a very fine line between the less scrupulous, eyebrow-raising efforts, and the more accepted manifestations.  Are we someday going to have Christian pornography, subtle Christian themes, maybe an actor pick up a Bible and read a passage before the main event, to hopefully plant that seed of influence? 

Where does it end?

The Rise and Fall of the Christian Influencer

David Ramsey, James Dobson, Ravi Zacharias, Ken Ham, and Bill Gothard are familiar names in conservative Mennonite circles.  Ramsey with his financial advice, Dobson with his focus on the culture war, Zacharias with his appeals to reason, Ham for his fundamentalist theme park, and Gothard an earlier version of life coaching seminars.  The point of all of these men, at least as expressed, was to advise, consult, and influence.  They are all men who took aspects of their religious values and turned it into an enterprise.

None of the men above represent a church denomination.  They rely on selling merch, the loyal support of people like you, and donations to expand their reach.  They have built ministry campuses, a literal ark in the state of Kentucky, a few massage parlors here and there, and are only accountable to their own ministry boards.  Usually the focus, at least initially, is around one illustrious character, a strong personality, who is too often surrounded by the cult he has created rather than those who will challenge.

There now seems like a parachurch organization for every niche.  The list of bloggers, authors, evangelists, producers of all sorts, continues to grow and especially now in the age of social media.  It costs me nothing but time to set up my account on WordPress and start spewing out my perspectives.  Perhaps, if I were a bit more ambitious, I would write a book, do a book tour, and eventually be at your Lady’s Tea event sharing what I learned about life and love from the book of Ecclesiastes.   Book your reservations now as available slots are filling fast!

But the parachurch is the downfall of the church.  Too often these ‘ministries’ have come at the expense of the local body of believers, submitting and serving each other in love.  Too often it is something guided more by the spirit of Diotrephes, wanting things our own way and seeking those who agree, rather than by Christ.  That is why we have seen a growing number of scandals come to light, of leaders forced to resign by outside pressure or disgraced after death for their hidden sinful deeds.  I know, speaking for myself, it is too easy for me to shun deeper involvement in the actual church because it is difficult, not determined by my feelings of inspiration, and this is something that must be repented.

Jesus was willing to serve, but he didn’t determine the cross he was required to carry and, instead, submitted to the will of the Father.  The disciples, and St Paul, likewise, were not Lone Rangers, doing it their own way, without accountability or oversight.  Those with gifts aren’t to use those gifts to serve themselves or build their own empires.  They were sent and commissioned by the church, under the umbrella of those ordained to lead, and not independent contractors pursuing their own pet causes.

The Christian life is not about values, certainly not about self-promotion or having the right program either, but is about our Communion together with other believers, both past and present, and with Christ.  From that, the Holy Spirit, from our accountability to each other, our true obedience, transformation will come from inside out and love will flow out to change the world.  The values and culture come from that rather than being taught at seminars, religious institutions, or Bible schools.

We don’t need more influencers.  We don’t need more parachurch organizations or a return to tent revival meetings either.  Many of these things are mere human efforts that will ultimately fail.  What we really need is the body of Christ, to partake and participate together in the life of the one true Church. 

Gothard: Messenger or Manipulator?

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I was walking across the mall with no time to waste.  Up ahead was one of those Dead Sea salt kiosks staffed by Israelis trained to intercept passing Gentiles. 

My intentions were to stride on by, keep my eyes focused ahead and totally avoid the high pressure sales tactics that make men of less mental fortitude into suckers.  I am not a sucker.

But as I passed I failed.  She spoke sweetly with an irresistible accent.  I was too nice to not answer a friendly greeting.  Sales people are human after all.  I let a reply slip.  “Thank you,” I said, “but, I’m in a hurry…” 

She was ready with an answer before I had even opened my mouth, my forward progress had somehow stopped, and she was rubbing lotion on my hand before I could think to protest.  My higher cognitive functions suddenly neutralized by the sensory input filling that primal need of physical touch.

I still was determined to resist.  I refused to make a purchase.  I am a consummate saver, a responsible spender, only buy things I need, and have no need of lotion, deep cleansers or any of that overpriced slime.  And, no, not for my mother, nor my sister, and what girlfriend, right?

“You’re really good at your job.”  I said, as I as I paid penance to the wiles of a soothing seductress, and contemplated male stupidity, and wondered what I would do with all the clutter she left in my hands, as if I had an obligation to spare her embarrassment of failure to sell. 

She never gave me the satisfaction of being right about her insincerity. 

What is manipulation?

To manipulate is to bend, form or move something and make it conform to your will.  We use a hammer as a persuasion device to manipulate steel or to pound a nail into a block of wood.  We try to manipulate our environment to make it more suitable to our own desired ends.

There are also people who manipulate other people, like my temporary friend at the mall kiosk, and try to control people through false means or fear.  This goes beyond simple persuasion.  Psychological manipulation, according to Wikipedia,“is a type of social influence that aims to change the perception or behavior of others through underhanded, deceptive, or abusive tactics.”

In the political sphere there is fear-mongering, demagoguery and pandering as manipulative tactics.  The manipulator plays on the emotions of the target audience.  He set himself up as an authority or in the know and trustworthy.  She poses as a concerned friend, a common person standing up against the bad people, or a heroic altruist.  But beneath the rhetoric is often a cynical calculated effort to buy votes and control people.

This is also an unfortunate aspect of religion.  Jesus warned of those who “tie up heavy, cumbersome loads and put them on other people’s shoulders,” and yet, “they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them.” (Matthew 23) These people, he goes on to say, are “hypocrites,” who “strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.”  He’s speaking of the religious experts, the “teachers of the law” and Pharisees.

The Pharisees were outwardly righteous, they followed many rules trying to please God, they would continually ask, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”  But, despite their “diligent” study of the Scripture, we are told, “the Father who sent me has himself testified concerning me. You have never heard his voice nor seen his form, nor does his word dwell in you, for you do not believe the one he sent.” (John 5)  They missed the answer standing literally (literally) in front of them.

They were deceived, self-decieved, and destroyed the very people they ‘won’ over by their dedicated missional efforts, making them “twice as much a child of hell” as they are according to Matthew’s account.  They posed as gate keepers to the “kingdom of heaven” and, unfortunately, did not enter themselves.  They are “blind guides” who neglected more important matters of actual spiritual weight.  These were men full of themselves and not the Spirit of God. 

Who is Bill Gothard?

Bill Gothard, PhD is a teacher popular in some Biblical fundamentalist communities.  He is known for his seminars which give “principles” loosely based on the Bible.  He is an elderly man now, he was never married (although he does give marriage and child rearing advice) and founder of Institute in Basic Life Principles.  He recently resigned from his organization amid sexual harassment allegations.

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(Read the “about me” on his website: http://billgothard.com/about )

I was asked for my thoughts about Gothard after my last blog post.  I had made a passing mention of him as one who rationalizes sexual abuse as a product of female immodesty or rebellion (kind of like earthquakes in Nepal) and I was also criticized for jumping on the bandwagon against him.  The link I provided was written from a “victim’s perspective” and apparently (in the critic’s opinion) the only right response for those who suffer abuse is forgiveness.

Well, I am not a victim of Mr. Gothard.  I have never met him in person.  I will leave it for God and others to judge Gothard’s personal life.  But, as one committed to “rightly dividing the word of truth,” (2 Timothy 2:15) I feel I must examine his teachings against Scripture.  I am familiar with his teachings. My church has hosted his seminars. I have had questions about his ideas and long before the Duggar family sexual molestation controversy put Gothard’s Advanced Training Institute in the spotlight.

My primary concern in this essay is with Gothard’s Scriptural hermeneutic and his theology, not his person.  There is some obvious overlap between the influence of his teachings, his behavior as a person and what he believes.  However, I prefer to stick as much to what is verifiable.  I do, as always, recommend looking for yourself rather than just take my word for it.  So I will give my perspective as an invitation to study for yourself and find the truth.

Gothard‘s teaching manipulates Scripture.

There are many different perspectives on Scripture and many opportunities to be wrong about what the Bible says.  I’ve made my share of mistakes when it comes to correctly understanding written texts.  I cannot fault a person for an occasional error in their interpretation and application of the Bible.  The Bible is a complex book and difficult to understand according to what is written in it:

“Bear in mind that our Lord’s patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him. He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction.“ (2 Peter 3:15-16 NIV)

Gothard’s teaching goes beyond just a simple misinterpretation of Scripture.  He makes fundamental and systematic errors in his Biblical exegesis.  He reads his own presuppositions into the text of the Bible and in ways that go directly against the actual explanations supplied within the text itself.  His understanding of Scripture seems to revolve around his own established ‘principles’ rather than go the other way around.  He neglects important concepts of faith while emphasizing his own prescriptions at the expense of whole truth.

This is not a perspective of Gothard’s work unique to me.  In a paper, “Issues of Concern—Bill Gothard and the Bible: A Report,” published May 30, 1984, Ronald B. Allen, ThD expressed the following evaluation:

“Gothard’s approach is not that of the careful exegete who wishes to determine the meaning of the text, but of the engineer who wishes to use the material in his own programmatic approach which is mechanical and not personal, mechanistic and not dynamic. Gothard does not really teach the Scripture; he really uses the Scripture to fit into his own categories.”

Gothard seemingly throws out the baby (what the Bible explains) to keep the bathwater of his own preconceived notions and prescriptive formulas.  His analysis of the book of Job is a glaring example of his editorial manipulation of a text.  Gothard actually comes out on the side of those who are rebuked by God for their false attribution of reasons for Job’s suffering, as Allen explains:

“The clear teaching of the Book of Job is that a mechanistic, cause-and-effect, approach to life may be way off base! Is it any wonder that Gothard tries to evade the clear teaching of the Bible that Job was a righteous man (the only reading on which the book works!), and finds many sins and character flaws in him (overwork in Christian causes, neglect of his family, embittered sons, estranged from family, wrong attitudes toward the workers). In this way the book is turned inside out and by this strange alchemy Job supports Gothard’s lists.“

There is nothing in the Biblical text to suggest Job brought his suffering upon himself for something wrong he did.  In fact it was the righteousness of Job that was the theme of the book. At the end of the book God vindicated Job and rebuked his persecuting comforters:

“After the Lord had said these things to Job, he said to Eliphaz the Temanite, “I am angry with you and your two friends, because you have not spoken the truth about me, as my servant Job has… My servant Job will pray for you, and I will accept his prayer and not deal with you according to your folly. You have not spoken the truth about me, as my servant Job has.”  (Job 42:7-8)

Gothard is repeating the folly of Job’s falsely accusing friends and does so despite having the end of the book where God sets them straight.  So, why would Gothard take the Job story and turn it upside down?  Well, perhaps it is because he over-applies an idea of sowing and reaping (or cause and effect) to every circumstance?  It becomes quite evident in Gothard’s teaching that every bad thing that happens to a person is a result of their own sin.

This erroneous idea is nothing new or unique to Job’s friends or Bill Gothard, the disciples of Jesus made the same mistake when they encountered a blind man in this Biblical account:

“As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”  “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him.”  (John 9:1-3)

Sometimes bad things are the result of nobody’s sin.  Jesus made a similar point as why we should show grace to all people when he reminded that God“causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.”  (Matthew 5:45)  In other words, sometimes (or even most times) a rainstorm is just a rainstorm and not judgment or a reward for behavior from God.  Not every good thing that happens to a person is a reward, not every bad thing that happens is a punishment.

Gothard’s teaching manipulates people.

One of the responses to my last blog came from a woman molested by her own father at age nine.  She did not invite that upon herself by something she did.  Sexual abuse victims often feel a sense of guilt or shame and need to be freed from that to be able to move on.  But, if she goes to Gothard, this may be the tenor of the advice she gets:

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Note the fourth point, “Why did God let it happen?”  In that there is “Result of defrauding by” and that followed by a list of four subpoints: Immodest dress; Indecent exposure; Being out from the protection of our parents; Being with evil friends?

I spoke at greater length about what the Bible actually says about modesty in my last post and there is absolutely nothing in the Bible that says sexual molestation or rape is a result of female immodesty.  That woman molested at nine years old did not dress to draw her own father’s attention, she was in her own home, she was molested by a parent and, again, in her own home!  So that is quite the exception to the logic of “defrauding” laid out by Gothard’s counseling literature.  There should be a big exception clause at very least.

But Gothardism doesn’t allow for exceptions to his own rules.  In Gothard’s view, as with his mistreatment of Job’s suffering as somehow self-inflicted, if a young woman is raped then she must’ve done something to deserve it.  In his “character sketches” he twists the Biblical account of Dinah by attributing wrongful attitudes to her that cannot be found anywhere in the text.  Gothard makes Dinah out to be a rebellious daughter and thus responsible for what happened to her.  Then he turns the opposite direction and is critical of Tamar for actually obeying her father’s request.  Gothard’s logic is self-contradictory and contradicts the Bible.  Worse, it shames sexual assault victims by implicating them and it adds a weight of guilt undeserved.

The Bible doesn’t support the false dichotomies and overly simplistic principles of Gothard’s teachings.  But, rather than admit his thinking is flawed and repent, Gothard attempts to manipulate the Bible to fit his own preconceived ideas.  That is to elevate his own opinions above the very explanations given in Scripture.  Gothard manipulates Biblical evidence in the same way Satan twisted God’s words to deceive Eve and in the same way Satan later misused Scripture to tempt Jesus.

Gothardism attempts to manipulate God

It also appears Gothard thinks of God like a vending machine: You insert devotion to a list of basic principles, you turn a few levers, pull a few knobs and out pops a blessing.  This is a mechanical view of God.  Another blogger critiquing Gothard put it this way:

“Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of Gothard’s heterodoxy is what it does to God. Not only does God plays little or no part in a believer’s life through omission, but Gothard actually teaches that God’s grace is bound to the limitations of our own abilities. It is not simply that God helps those who help themselves, but that God will not and cannot help anyone who is not already practicing the right principles.”

It is an underestimate of God that essentially makes us our own savior and that is antithetical to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  Sure, I see many good things in what Gothard teaches, his textbook contains many interesting anecdotes and observations about human nature, but it is missing something.  It reminds me of when Jesus said to the Pharisees, “go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’” (Matthew 9:13)

The quote Jesus used was from the sixth chapter of the book of Hosea.  At the time there was a complex ritual of sacrificial devotion to God and in that chapter the people, treating God like a vending machine, give a superficial repentance.   But God is not impressed.  God answers with “I desire mercy, not sacrifice” and doesn’t accept their religious devotion.

Gothard seems intent on trying to please God by his devotion to a set of life principles.  Unfortunately, in that he seems to have gotten off track and is so concerned about tithing spices of his own system that he neglects the weightier matters of spiritual life (Matthew 23) and that being genuine relationship with God.  God is not a machine.  Faith is not mere religious devotion to a set of principles.

What is missing from Gothard’s teaching?

Grace is the wild card in a black and white world of determinism’s cause-and-effect dictates.  The Gospel without grace is like a car without wheels.  Over and over again in the critique of Gothard’s work is mention of a lack of his proper understanding of grace.  Yes, there is mention of grace in Gothard’s work, but there seems to be a difference between what he means by grace and what is spelled out in Scripture.  Grace is not a mechanical process of our careful application of correct principles, it is a mysterious paradox of God’s love:

“But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”  (Ephesians 2:4-10)

This is the work of religion…

“Do not let anyone who delights in false humility and the worship of angels disqualify you.  Such a person also goes into great detail about what they have seen; they are puffed up with idle notions by their unspiritual mind.  They have lost connection with the head, from whom the whole body, supported and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows as God causes it to grow.  Since you died with Christ to the elemental spiritual forces of this world, why, as though you still belonged to the world, do you submit to its rules: “Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!”? These rules, which have to do with things that are all destined to perish with use, are based on merely human commands and teachings. Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence.“  (Colosians 2:18-20)

This is the work of faith…

“What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds?  Can such faith save them? Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food.  If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it?  In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.  But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.” Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds. You believe that there is one God. Good!  Even the demons believe that—and shudder.  You foolish person, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless?”  (James 2:14-20)

Christianity, authentic Christian faith, is about love and not manipulation.  Jesus told his disciples:

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.  By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”  (John 13:34-35)

Is Gothard a false teacher?

I wish matters like this were as simple as the Dead Sea salt kiosk where it was quite obvious I was being manipulated.  My initial reaction is that Bill Gothard is a false teacher.  It is not because he does not have some good insights or points either.  I was reminded of the time when Jesus rebuked Peter, saying “get behind me, Satan!” (Matthew 16:23)  Peter went on to be a powerful example of God’s grace.

I worry about the tendency of fundamentalist’s to ‘circle the wagons’ when it comes to someone who claims to uphold ‘Biblical principles’ and conservative values.  The same people who repost scary internet memes about “Charlie Charlie” will welcome a man like Gothard into their church or home without stopping to consider that he could be a false teacher and potential traitor to the Gospel.

“For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men.”

That above is part of the warning Marcus Tullius Cicero gave in Roman times.  He was speaking about threats to nations or governments from within them, but his words could also easily apply to the church today.  We need to be aware of the enemy within the gates.  Satan was described as subtle, are we looking for the subtle deception or only the obvious threat?

As far as Gothard, I have stepped back from my initial reaction.  I am content to let God judge him and his teachings.  However, for myself I will go to another source of authority rather than him, I believe there is a primary source greater than even the best of commentators and it is that wisdom I seek.  For you who teach, I leave this:

“Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly.”  (James 3:1)

Be careful teachers what you teach!