Flow charts can be helpful for the proper comprehension of authority and responsibility. They cannot replace what scripture says nor even completely picture what the Bible says about authority and responsibility. There is always overlap that can't be represented by a flow chart without contradiction. This relates to the separation of church and state.
The state isn't over the church and the church isn't over the state, so in that way they are separate entities. On the flow chart, they are distinct squares on an equal plane. In certain ways, however, the church is over the state and the state is over the church. This happens and it contradicts the flow chart.
Christ is the Head of the church. He isn't the Head of the state. The state gets authority from God, but it doesn't have Christ as its Head. In that way the church is superior to the state. God gives the church the keys of the kingdom, so that the church is dealing with eternal matters the state can't even touch. The church can tell a man to do things the state cannot. The church can tell the governor of the state that he's out of the church. The governor is under church authority. The church can bind him or loose him on earth and he can't stop it.
The state can charge the church fees. It can inspect a church building for a fire permit. It can stop its church members on the highway and give them a ticket. It can send its men to war, where for years they are never in church. It can stop the church from meeting in the middle of the road or perform an outdoor meeting in which the congregation disturbs the neighbors. It can order the church people from entering a condo development to evangelize.
The government has told our church not meet, because meeting will help spread the coronavirus and kill people. I could argue that we can die of the disease if we want to. How far does this go? We could take up the hospital bed of someone who needs it and he dies instead. Because of meeting, maybe our church sends ten people to the hospital, and that doesn't hurt anyone else, but if every church sends ten people, that does hurt the state, so the state requires every church not to meet. This is the very reason why government is needed and ordained by God. It's not just the church not meeting, but theaters, restaurants, stadiums, gymnasiums, funeral homes, and classrooms. Churches are not singled out for not meeting.
As a pastor, I understanding being in a position where I know things that other people do not know. I am in a position to know more things many times than other people. I make decisions very often based on way more information than what other people could possibly have. When the state said there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, I couldn't tell them they were wrong. I'm still not sure there weren't.
Sabbath was sacrosanct in Israel. It could not be missed. Numbers 15:32-36 read:
And while the children of Israel were in the wilderness, they found a man that gathered sticks upon the sabbath day. And they that found him gathering sticks brought him unto Moses and Aaron, and unto all the congregation. And they put him in ward, because it was not declared what should be done to him. And the Lord said unto Moses, The man shall be surely put to death: all the congregation shall stone him with stones without the camp. And all the congregation brought him without the camp, and stoned him with stones, and he died; as the Lord commanded Moses.This followed Exodus 31:15:
Six days may work be done; but in the seventh is the sabbath of rest, holy to the Lord: whosoever doeth any work in the sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death.Yet, Jesus said this in Matthew 12:11-12:
What man shall there be among you, that shall have one sheep, and if it fall into a pit on the sabbath day, will he not lay hold on it, and lift it out? How much then is a man better than a sheep? Wherefore it is lawful to do well on the sabbath days.Similarly in Luke 14:5 He said:
Which of you shall have an ass or an ox fallen into a pit, and will not straightway pull him out on the sabbath day?An exception was made for an animal falling into a pit. That didn't mean that Israel stopped observing the Sabbath, but there were exceptions. Hebrews 10:25 says, "Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together." That is God's will for the church. I believe it isn't a command, because of situations just like we're in. Our manner is not forsaking ourselves together, but like with the animal in the hole on Sabbath, the pandemic could be an exception.
God has not ordained the church to overturn other human institutions. Paul expounds on this in 1 Corinthians 7. Peter writes in 1 Peter 2:13-16:
Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake: whether it be to the king, as supreme; Or unto governors, as unto them that are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers, and for the praise of them that do well. For so is the will of God, that with well doing ye may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men: As free, and not using your liberty for a cloke of maliciousness, but as the servants of God.Churches and Christians should not as a practice be revolutionaries, tend toward mutiny. This isn't compromising. We aren't about this world, but the next; not about this kingdom, but about the kingdom of Jesus Christ. We don't belong that much here. There's relatively little to fight for here. Mostly we've already won. We're working for what's coming in the next world and we don't want people to be confused about that. That's how Jesus operated and His apostles.
Jesus said they'll still hate you. They will still persecute you, revile you, and say all manner of evil against you. This complements the actual good citizenship of church members. They aren't bringing on this treatment through insubordination. It comes through actual light shining, the preaching of the gospel, the confrontation of sin. Our church does this a lot (read what Harvard says about our church and me).
As an American citizen, I believe in religious liberty. As an American citizen, I would fight for religious liberty. Americans did at the Alamo. That is part of what it means to be a citizen of the United States. Attorney General Barr has stood and spoken in that tradition. His signal to churches in the United States gives an opportunity with wisdom to move faster than a state governor to come together in some fashion again. However, the Apostle Paul didn't have religious liberty, he didn't fight for that. Neither did Jesus. That is a characteristic of the United States, which opens up into another longer discussion. We should obey God rather than men (Acts 5:29). Is meeting during this pandemic obeying God rather than men? We're saying, No. Others are saying, Yes.
20 comments:
As a Roman citizen, Paul had no trouble calling out the abuse of authority exercised by some of the regional/lower level Roman leaders/authorities on multiple occasions, whether it be unlawful beatings or wrongful arrests that resulted in his appealing to Caesar. I think that part of what is missing is that your own federal Attorney General, tasked with overseeing the just and constitutional enforcement of the nation's laws has clearly articulated that in a number of states, California included, the ban on religious assembling is not being handled equitably, and he has specifically cited the ability to assemble in parking lots and retail outlets with adequate safety measures in place, but not to assemble in like manner to worship God. I know you are saying that is an apples and oranges comparison (although I wouldn't mind hearing why you think it is), but the chief law enforcement officer of the United States says it is not to the extent that he has filed supporting briefs for a number of churches in several states (yours included) to sue the state government for violating these churches' constitutional rights. Is he wrong? And if he is not wrong, then I point back to Paul's own actions on multiple times to say that it is not civil disobedience to withstand the unlawful exercise of authority by the executive of a town, a state/province, etc.
Additionally, I think that while you have so far framed this meeting/not meeting as a liberty issue for churches, I would like to see a more developed articulation of the basis for framing it that way. Something isn't a liberty issue just because we want it to be. In other words, what is the Biblical basis for deeming this a liberty issue?
Along those lines, I think it's important to see that there is, at the very least, an unreconciled tension, and at the most, an inconsistency to see this simultaneously as a liberty issue and as a case of either obeying government or disobeying government. The closing sentences of this post and the apparent implication in the last post that churches meeting during this time will "help kill more people" seem to undermine the idea of this being a liberty issue. One does not have liberty to disobey God-ordained civil authority without Biblical warrant nor to contribute to the killing of others, and you have laid out your position as being that this is not a case of requiring obedience to God rather than man. A reasonable person would logically conclude that churches such as ours and others are, based on the position laid out here and in the previous posts, disobeying government and disobeying God by continuing to assemble, even with meticulous health precautions being taken. The irony, of course, would be that in our efforts to glorify God by assembling to worship, we are actually not glorifying God in so doing.
Hi There,
I just finished my three zoom classes. We might do the parking lot meeting in the near future as the next phase of our meeting, so that we meet. I don't feel the need to justify our not meeting. I started writing about this as ecclesiological issues exposed by the pandemic. From about 9th grade until maybe three or four years ago, I had never missed a church service. Not one. That was forty years of perfect attendance. I started taking a different tack. I changed on that even, because when I was on the road, I would choose not to assemble with a church where I wasn't confident to assemble. That is more difficult than ever and it was a serious change for me. Every time I've missed an assembly, it has been a very serious moment and it was not replaced with something superficial. I didn't play shuffle board or binge watch movies during those times. I listed to three sermons and prayed, something like that. However, I knew I wasn't assembling. It was a choice I was making that I believed was better than the other. What if I had assembled instead with an independent Baptist church instead, where the preacher told stories or ripped a passage out of its context, and preached his own ideas? This is where the liberty situation comes in. It's an ethical decision, a better decision. Nowhere says thou shalt never miss. How you miss, I think, matters to God too. Like you said, some people are meeting in their parking lots and I wouldn't want to be there with them, because what happens in that meeting is poor and I don't want to endorse.
One of my struggles on this subject is attempting to understand how to deal with religious liberty issues. This has been a struggle for many. Some say the American revolution was right, some say it wasn't. Even in this post, I'm seemingly contradicting myself. I am saying that I would fight for religious liberty when Paul did not. Yes, he used his Roman citizenship, but he didn't take up arms. I know that you know this. The difference reactions are the liberty aspect. I never started at any time going after people for meeting during this time. I was defending our not meeting.
Other people say the appropriate fight is to sacrifice yourself to the virus, let it kill you and your parents, and this is akin to a martyr's death. I don't believe it would be a martyr's death. George has written me about ten comments so far with lots CAPS, screaming at my cowardice, saying that I wouldn't even visit a sick person. We've visited sick people, not knowing if they had the virus. One went the emergency room in an ambulance and that person was negative, but we didn't know it. I just preached Acts 13, finished it, and Paul capped it off by leaving Antioch of Pisidia so he wouldn't be killed. Coward!! (sarcasm)
Furthermore (ran out of character space).
I've looked into the radio transmitter or the app to livestream in real time in the parking lot. We might try, so that we are assembling. How many missed assemblies mean you are not assembling? That is the liberty part of this. If we usually meet on Wednesday and we don't? Some people might have the dogmatic answer to these questions, like angels dancing on the head of a pin.
I don't think "meeters" want to kill. That's where interpretation comes in. I could be a killer by not washing my hands, and that doesn't make me a killer. There is a sliding scale on this, I believe. I'm explaining us not killing people on that sliding scale. I think you know this. You are a "meeter" (a word like denier, climate denier, or a birther, related to the birth certificate). "Meeters" want to kill. Non-meeters don't want to kill. I'm not saying that.
To interpret Barr, I think he has seen religious folk targeted for the previous administration, the IRS, some unique attacks. I see him as using this to push back in both a real and a symbolic way. Part of the "meeter" mentality is that. We're going to meet anyway. They know Barr's got their back too now. I support "meeters." What I believe is in my essays. We haven't been "meeters." We've been practicing what we believe. I don't think Strouse has proven that we have to meet just because he is a meeter.
Some of the same people who meet aren't some of the most truly evangelistic people, suffering for what we're supposed to suffer for, that I see in the New Testament. We are those people. I don't think exposing to the disease is biblical suffering. I don't think putting meeting in the face of Gavin Newsome is it either. This isn't on par, I'm saying, with Paul using his Roman citizenship.
Enough for now.
This seems to conflate circumstances of worship with elements of worship. Frequency of meetings (you mentioned suspending Wednesday services) beyond the pattern laid out in Scripture would fit into that. Likewise the paying of fees for church buildings or decisions to hold church services in the middle of the interstate. Assembling is an element. The frequency of assembling (beyond the first day of the week as patterned in Scripture) is not. Those aren't equivalent to deciding to indefinitely suspend assembling altogether, as I'm sure you would concede.
I'm mixing some ideas in here, to divide in a more clear way, there is the worship issue, the religious liberty issue, the state church issue, etc. Assembling is an element, okay, but is a church not assembling if it stops meeting for a pandemic? On the other hand, is a church submitting to the government like a state church and relinquishing religious liberty by not meeting on Wednesday? Both of these are being mixed together.
Does corporate singing, prayer, and preaching require meeting? We pulled it off on livestream? I don't know how that is different than a parking lot. I see the Lord's Table as something to pull off in a parking lot. This is Strouse's unassembled assembly doctrine, opening the door to Ignatius. Churches must take the Lord's Table and they must assemble for that to occur. A true church faithfully practices the ordinances. I'm with Strouse on the unassembled assembly if he means that a true church must assemble, but he's not saying that. What say ye? Is the church only a church when it assembles? I don't think I've heard you say.
Perhaps the ambiguity on certain part of the circumstances, assembling to sing, pray, and preach, when those can be done on livestream, combined with this unassembled assembly issue, is where the nub of this is. Strouse goes further and says it relates to giving up Baptist distinctives, not understanding what it means to be a Baptist, and so forth. I don't think that is successfully authoritatively employed.
Enough again for now.
The application of scriptural principles in practice goes a long way toward resolving this situation. The members should follow the policy of the leadership of their own church, meaning the Pastor. That's what this situation calls for.
If the church leadership hold to not meeting, there is still no problem if some members were to meet in private, just as they always have been able to do. Where two or three are gathered together in his name, the Lord is present there. This may not count as an assembly— but certainly, if their leadership has temporarily suspended a meeting then there isn't an assembly of ourselves together to neglect in that case. Private meetings are another way to keep meeting to fulfill various needs.
If the church leadership holds to meeting, there is still no problem if some members have a safety issue in this case with personal health concerns that keeps them from church. That is no different than any time in the past.
It seems clear in any case what the best course of action is, to support the decisions of your church leadership. This is the time for that. I say church leadership because, for those without a Pastor in charge, this may be a really difficult time.
As far as government interference in concerned, this still legitimately appears like a measure in reaction to an emerging situation, not as a policy set in law. The difference is that measures such as this cannot go on for long from a civil government perspective, they are too damaging. Something is prone to change because the long term effects of a shutdown are not sustainable. If somehow the measure restricting church meetings is extended into legislation then this discussion will have entered an entirely new phase and I believe many people's minds will be changed against it if it truly comes to that. I am not discounting that possibility, however remote it might seem to some based on the current known facts.
A.T.
There are three “let us” statement in Hebrews 10:12-24 that are actually summary statements from the original warning of the epistle to the Hebrews in Hebrews 4:1; “Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it.” The “rest” is “complete” salvation offered as a gift to the understanding believer resting in the finished redemptive work of Jesus Christ (Colossians 2:10) totally apart from the “works of the law” (Galatians 2:16). Hebrews 4:11 then goes on with the same admonishment; “Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief.” To return to the Temple and its Mosaic Covenant Sacerdotalism would be equal to denying the finished redemptive work of Jesus Christ. This theme and context of the whole epistle to the Hebrews running consistently through every chapter.
The epistle to the Hebrews is both a declaration of the superiority of the New Covenant “in Christ” and a warning to Jewish believers who were considering abandoning the unique distinctiveness of the Church assembly and the completeness of salvation “in Christ” to return to the Temple and the Mosaic Covenant and the incompleteness of the Mosaic Covenant types of Christ. This is the primary context of the “not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some” in Hebrews 10:25. The context is forsaking the Church assembly to begin attending the Temple assemblies. To forsake the Church assemblies for the Temple assemblies would be a contradiction of faith in Christ and the completeness of all that Christ offers in the New Covenant.
Although Hebrews 10:25 is often used to exhort unfaithful Christians to faithfulness regarding their attendance of the assembling of the local church of which they belong, the primary context of the text is a warning about the reality of both misunderstanding the New Covenant and a warning about the reality of saving faith in Christ. The application of this text as an admonishment to being faithful in local church attendance is certainly applicable. However, the contextual warning of the text is a warning about misunderstanding the New Covenant completeness “in Christ” and therefore a warning about false professions in unfaithfulness to the assembly.
Instead, preachers use Hebrews 10:25 to guilt people who are probably not true believers to become faithful to attending the assembly of which they have no real practical connection other than some misplaced and misunderstood duty. A person who understands salvation and the priesthood of all believers in the New Covenant will never need to be quilted into attending the assembly and the “perfecting” ministry of that assembly (Ephesians 4:12). Hebrews chapter eleven will expand upon the manifestations of this understanding manifesting itself in continuing in practical faithfulness to what a believer professes. This is the constant examples of those listed in the Hall of Faith in Hebrews chapter eleven. The warnings of the epistle to the Hebrews are extremely applicable considering the morphing of Christianity from Old Covenant Sacerdotalism into the Sacramentalism of Replacement/Reformed Theology.
Thanks A.T. I agree.
Lance, I appreciate your comment. Most people take Hebrews 10:24-25 out of context, and I'm dealing with it as the application to which you refer. There's a lot to say about what you wrote, but thanks for spending so much time.
A.T. and others,
Our church is without a pastor. It has been difficult. We have a man attending who, prior to the lockdown, had expressed interest in joining our church. He is a born-again believer, but has not been baptized. He really wants to be. This has made it doubly difficult. Needless to say, we are praying for the mandates to be lifted soon.
On another question, what does this hysteria mean for evangelism? I am thinking of door-to-door. I imagine it will be many months (if ever) that we will be able to speak to people at the door without the extra worries about contagion. Is anyone out there doing systematic evangelism?
Chris
"George has written me about ten comments so far with lots CAPS".
I am reminded why I was glad to see George banned from comment. I very much appreciate the back and forth on Bible issues & application. George offered none of this. There was a very useful discussion of Sanctification & evidence of salvation a number of years ago, with a large number of comments, which were very useful in nature. But soon enough, George took the comments completely sideways. It was a waste of time & effort.
This really shouldn't be a complex issue and is pretty straight forward. Look, the vaccine will be out within probably two years at the max. Some speculate that it may even be ready by the end of this year. Churches will not be allowed to meet until there is a vaccine. If it comes out this year, that means churches can meet again in less than a year. Just wait it out, whatever the time frame is, and don't worry about it. Once the vaccine is out this will all be a distant memory. Bill Gates is working on this thing night and day and we should all be grateful for his efforts on our behalf.
Anonymous,
Probably right after we thank our lucky stars, we can thank Bill Gates for working on this thing. He are smart.
You're funny.
Question: Scripturally, is it the church leaderships role or the congregation—brotherhood (which includes the leadership) as to whether the church will meet or not?
Thanks,
Reuben
Actually, anonymous (without a name) might not be that far off about churches not being able to meet without a vaccine. In B.C. (aka. British Communism) Canada, the last phase (4) of "BC's (Careful) Restart Program" is contingent upon, "Large gatherings, conditional on vaccination or treatment." (https://stories.northernhealth.ca/stories/bcs-careful-restart-plan). That ought to make the hair stand up on anyones neck.
The entire COVID-19 deception is a means to bring people and churches under the control of the government, a precursor and/or harbinger to the Antichrist's program in the Tribulation. The virus itself is not really as dangerous as the seasonal flu. Ironically, it's more than likely propelled through the flu vaccine (mostly), and no that is not some conspiracy theory. I work in front line emergency medicine and am quite familiar with all this. Furthermore, although I would rarely recommend videos to watch, I would encourage people to have a watch of this: https://plandemicmovie.com
On another note, I would have to agree with Thomas Strouse about not shutting the doors of the church, even if that means going against the government. They have no Biblical right not to allow us to meet, and it is disobedience to God's Word on our part not to. This is not a liberty issue. It reminds me of Communist Russia where non-registered churches were not allowed to meet. They met anyway and suffered terrible persecution for it. It didn't stop them. Personally I have spent a number of years in a Middle Eastern Sharia Law country, where, as an unregistered religious organization--an independent Baptist church-- we were forbidden to meet, preach, carry our Bibles, proselytize, etc, but yet it never stopped anyone in our congregation, definitely not our pastor (who had previously barely escaped a beheading in another Islamic nation). And we did it openly, sometimes in the company of special guests, "undercover" ones. What made it even the more hazardous was the fact that I worked personally for the king of the country. God blesses obedience, especially when we esteem the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king (Heb 11).
The following list shows numerous examples of saints from the Bible who resisted civil authority and ended up getting in serious trouble with the government. These ministers of the Lord God directly resisted the power (authority) of civil government, and they received the blessings of God for doing so:
- Moses broke civil laws by killing a taskmaster for abuse and attempted murder of a slave whom he nobly defended (Ex 2:11-12; Ac 7:24-25).
- David refused to submit to the government authority of Saul's troops (1 Sam 19).
- Daniel resisted the State by refusing to keep silent in his prayers (Dan 6).
- Shadrach, Meshach, & Abednego defied the higher powers by refusing to worship a statue (Dan 3).
- John the Baptist was imprisoned & beheaded for telling the truth to a State ruler about his adulterous relationship & other evils (Matt 14:1-12; Lk 3:19).
- Apostles were thrown in jail for refusing to obey the governing rulers (Ac 5:17-18).
- Christians were rounded up and thrown in jail for resisting government authority (Ac 8:1-3; 16:16-24).
- Christians defied the governor of Damascus who was attempting to apprehend Paul, and helped him escape through a window in a basket by a wall (2 Cor 11:32-33; Ac 9:23-25).
- God commanded the wise men to disobey the State ruler (Matt 2:7-12), which consequently resulted in the slaying of all children in Bethlehem and area two years old and under (Matt 2:16-18).
What's fascinating about this, is that in all these instances of saints defying government ordinances, they had the protection of the Lord God. Just as we are subjected to the authority of government, government is subjected to the authority of God, and there are circumstances where the authority of God trumps that of government.
Reuben
Reuben,
I decided to leave your comment alone. It's not because there isn't an answer. People will have to decide whether we're cowards or not or whether we're sinning. My conscience is completely clean based on what I know scripture teaches. Your comment didn't change anything for me.
Related to pastor versus congregation, it's not binary. I agreed with whoever said that the church should make the decision and the one where the church should follow the pastor. I believe both of them.
Thanks for dropping by.
Is this a fake story?
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/with-devastating-speed-coronavirus-spread-through-a-long-beach-fire-station-but-these-firefighters-battled-back/ar-BB13JuTJ
The 71 year old, saved sister of a church member, our kindergarten teacher in our school, just died of covid-19. If she caught the disease meeting in church, that would be called being a martyr, not being a coward, doing the right thing, chalk it up to the consequences of obedience. It does beg the question, why wasn't she protected? I thought people were protected. Did she lack faith? When someone dies, that means that they were a martyr and when they don't die, they were protected. How do you know? You don't. It's just a guess.
This site has a long history of being pro-vaccine and pro-pharmaceutical, for which we are all grateful. Even though it is basically a theological site, it has put out many articles over the years that dismiss anti-vaxxers, people who believe in alternative medicine, etc. We should all be grateful for this. To the anonymous comment above: you are on the wrong web site. Please leave your anti-vax comments for some other site. I found this site through Sharper Iron. That is another site that I do not agree with for the most part, but they at least stand up to these anti-vaxxer right-wing nuts. This is a time to put aside our theological differences and stand together against the anti-science crowd, such as the person who posted above. Mr. Brandenburg, thank you for taking a stand and for not giving in to the radical right crowd who are against vaccines. I have appreciated your support of the pharmaceutical industry over the years and your stand against alternative medicine.
Thank you for standing for reason, Mr. Brandenburg. Depending upon when the vaccine gets developed, it may be up to 2 years until it is developed. If a church can't handle missing services fora mere 2 years, then they were not much of a church to begin with.
This covid crisis has brought out the crazies. These churches who think they have the "right" to meet during this time and the "right" to defy civil authorities and allow unvaccinated people into their services are an embarrassment. Thank you for being pro-law and for being pro-science. I have seen a lot of the Christian crazies come out of the woodwork during this crisis. Why are Christians so gullible and fall for these conspiracy theories such as what that anonymous poster posted above?
Hello Anonymous,
I had to read your comment a couple of times to determine whether you were serious or not. It's hard to tell with anonymous comments and one of the problems of anonymous comments. I've received many comments that are just made-up and presenting a kind of straw-man argument. I decided to take your comments seriously.
You say we are pro-vaccine and pro-pharmaceutical here. I have written zero of those posts. They are all Thomas Ross. I don't think I would have written one of them, but I also sympathize with Thomas on what he wrote. There is backlash among independent Baptists more from an anti-vaccine standpoint than there is pro-vaccine. My general approach is to call this a liberty issue with low level counsel to get the vaccines. In general, I don't like to talk or write about it, because it seems to distract from what is most important. I've never preached a sermon on it. I have conversations though.
Sometimes we have to defy civil authorities. We are not going to not meet for two years until there is a vaccine. We will meet in a safe way. It's not crazy to meet, and if you are going to say that, then you need to look at some of the shopping places. Target is a mad house. Big Lots is a mad house. People are lined up all the way to the back of the store, and yet churches cannot meet? We do have the right to meet. Read the constitution. At some point the government is excluding the churches, and churches are not crazy to be wary of that. Your thinking their crazy for thinking that shows a disconnect and lack of wisdom on your part. Are you a believer?
Going to hell forever is worse than the coronavirus. Rejecting Jesus as your Lord is worse than the coronavirus. Not worshiping God is worse than the coronavirus. True Christians are not the crazies. The anti-science transgender and abortion crowd -- they are crazy, if anyone is. Those who say everything came about by accident. That is crazy.
You show that you don't understand church is you think a church is not going to meet for 2 years. A church is an assembly so that if it doesn't assemble, it isn't a church. Not meeting is not an alternative, which is why churches are driving in and we're going to drive in. God deserves to be worshiped and praised even at the risk of death from a disease. You've got me wrong in a number of different ways.
If by pro-pharmaceutical, you think we are right with the pharmaceutical companies, or that we are corporatists, you've got that wrong too. I don't trust those companies. I believe, however, when Edward Jenner found the smallpox vaccine that was good for the world. This is subdue and have dominion. We should support true science, that I agree with, but that doesn't mean that I think you anonymous are truly scientific. When it comes to reason, I support the priority of the mind over emotion, but that doesn't mean that reason and faith are in contradiction. They're not. You can't understand this world except by faith, and that is reasonable, like Paul mentioned in Romans 12:2, your reasonable service. That's all I'll say for now.
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