The Practical Nature of Assurance

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Assurance makes a difference. Remembering "who" before "do" is vital.

J.C. Ryle, the great 19th century Anglican Bishop, reminds us:

This Assurance will enable a man to praise God, and be thankful, even in a prison, like Paul and Silas.

This Assurance will enable a man to sleep, with the prospect of death the next day, like Peter.

This Assurance can make a man rejoice to suffer shame for Christ’s sake, like the Apostles.

This Assurance enables us to feel that the great business of life is a settled business, the great debt a paid debt, the great disease a healed disease, and the great work a finished work; and all other business, diseases, debts, and works, are then by comparison small.

This Assurance sweetens bitter cups, lessens the burden of crosses, smooths rough places, and lightens the valley of the shadow of death.

It makes him always feel that he has something solid beneath his feet, something firm under his hands, a sure friend by the way, and a sure home at the end.


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One of the greatest books written in the 20th century regarding how live in the family of faith is Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s, Life Together. The entire book is simply an exposition of the first line of Psalm 133: "Behold, how good and pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together in unity."

Therefore, the Christian needs another Christian who speaks God's Word to him. He needs him again and again when he becomes uncertain and discouraged for by himself he cannot help himself without belying the truth. He needs his brother as a bearer and proclaimer of the divine word of salvation. The Christ in his own heart is weaker than the Christ in the word of his brother. His own heart is certain, his brother’s is sure.

I'm convicted!

Eugene Peterson on today’s pastors:

The pastors of America have metamorphosed into a company of shop keepers, and the shops they keep are churches. They are preoccupied with shopkeeper’s concerns—how to keep customers happy, how to lure customers away from competitors down the street, how to package goods so that customers will lay out more money. . . .

“A walloping great congregation is fun,” says Martin Thornton, “but what most communities really need is a couple saints."

The biblical fact is that there are no successful churches. There are instead, communities of sinners, gathered week after week in towns and villages all over the world. The Holy Spirit gathers them and does his work in them. In these communities of sinners, one of the sinners is called the pastor. . . . The pastor’s responsibility is to keep the community attentive to God.

Three basic pastoral acts, says Peterson, determine the shape of evening else:

Attentiveness to God in prayer, in Scripture reading [preaching, teaching] and spiritual direction [personal discipling relationships].

From Working the Angles: The Shape of Pastoral Integrity.


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The Greatest Sin in History

Repent, therefore, of this wickedness of yours, and pray to the Lord that, if possible, the intent of your heart may be forgiven you. ~ Acts 8:22

It is by the mixture of counterfeit religion with true, not discerned and distinguished, that the Devil has had his greatest advantage against the cause and kingdom of Christ. ~ Jonathan Edwards

What was the greatest public sin committed by Christians in American history? Numerous corporate decisions made by American Christians could vie for this dubious honor. For me, the colonial witchcraft trials in Salem Village that begin in 1692 top the list.

Edmund Morgan, a distinguished historian of early America, writes,

Salem has never been able to keep the story of the witchcraft trials to itself. For nearly three centuries the story has excited the imagination and curiosity of men and women throughout the Western world. It somehow strikes a chord that we all respond to, whether with indignation or sorrow or sympathy. It opens a window not only on Salem, not only on Puritan New England, but on the human condition.

The infamous trials took place during a time of significant transition and tension in the Bay Colony. The Colony had recently lost its right to self government, church leaders could not agree on a form of government for their fledging churches, and the younger generation was, as Morgan maintains, “going to the proverbial dogs, frolicking in taverns instead of going to church.”

The Bible clearly states that Satan is real (Job 1, 2), demons are at work (Matthew 7-12), and mediums and the necromancers exist (1 Samuel 15:23; 28:3-25). Some Salem witches may have been guilty. There is every indication that genuine, supernatural, demonic activity uniquely manifested itself in the lives of several people in Salem Village. The evidences and paraphernalia of witchcraft were unmistakable. But the concern degenerated into a panic. Innocent people of all ages were bullied, slandered, and killed. A number of trials were notorious travesties of justice.

That part of the story is well documented. What secular historians have tended to ignore is what happened five years after the termination of the trials. The entire community prayed, fasted, and repented of its sins. Morgan says,

The Salem witch trials may one day look like one of the prouder episodes in our history simply because the whole society was willing to recognize its complicity. In spite of [Judge] Samuel Sewell’s desire to take the blame and shame on himself, it was the whole society that fasted and prayed in acknowledgment of guilt and did not seek to shuffle the blame on the members of their duly constituted tribunal.

Christians today have much to learn from our colonial American brothers and sisters. Imagine an entire community today coming together to pray, fast, and repent, publicly recognizing the dangers of self-righteousness and need for contrition and forgiveness. I wonder.


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The Pastor’s Perspective


Women’s Ministry

Recently, the Session appointed a committee of Westminster women to reflect upon ministry to women in our church and community and then propose new goals and structure for women’s ministry in our church. The committee members, Kathy Coleman, Joyce Kokaisel, Sister Kosko (Chair), Cindy Mercer, Kim Pillow, Cyndi Savage, and Jere Stansel, are working hard to serve you in this capacity. Please lift them up in prayer. I am encouraged by their efforts and excited about their upcoming proposal.

Men’s Discipleship Groups

I admit it. I love Marine slogans: “A few good men.” “The few, the proud, the Marines.” “We don’t accept applications, only commitments.” "Once a Marine, always a Marine." "Tell that to the Marines." And, of course, “Semper Fidelis!” These slogans communicate commitment without compromise, loyalty without excuse. They call men to something beyond themselves.
I know the woman’s discipleship groups have been a great benefit to women throughout the church. The women are taking a break for the summer, but they will resume their fellowship together in August.

You will soon be hearing more about a similar ministry for men. No applications, only commitments! Stay tuned!

PCA General Assembly

I will be gone to General Assembly the third week in June. Please keep all of the commissioners in your prayers that week. As always, we will be debating and voting on issues with important theological and ethical implications for the entire denomination. Pray for the peace and purity of the church. Pray that our denomination will remain faithful to its call to be salt and light in the world. Pray that men would enjoy unity in fellowship and worship. On Sunday morning, June 21, the Rev. Elbert McGowan, RUF campus minister at Jackson State University will preach for us. Pray for him. The Lord is blessing JSU through his ministry.

Summer Sunday Nights

What is a man? What is woman? What is a marriage? What is a family? The answers are obvious, right? Wrong. At no other time in our nation’s history have Americans been more confused about the nature and responsibility of gender roles
Beginning on Sunday evening, June 7, we will go to the Scriptures in search of answers. Our series, “Christian Manhood and Womanhood: A Christian Perspective on Roles, Rules, and Responsibilities,” will be appropriate and practical for all ages and life stages. Each one of us is a male or a female!

This series will emphasize the practical aspects of God’s design for men and women in their relationships with one another. We will look at the Bible’s teaching on issues such as masculinity and femininity, authority and equality, singleness and marriage, roles in the church, responsibilities at home, and gender confusion in the culture.

The "Maine" Thing

Yesterday the state of Maine became the fifth state to legalize Gay marriage. This is an appropriate time to remind you of CBMW.

In 1987, a group of pastors and scholars assembled to address their concerns over the influence of feminism not only in our culture but also in evangelical churches. Because of the widespread compromise of biblical understanding of manhood and womanhood and its tragic effects on the home and the church, these men and women established The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood.

In opposition to the growing movement of feminist egalitarianism they articulated what is now known as the complementarian position which affirms that men and women are equal in the image of God, but maintain complementary differences in role and function. In the home, men lovingly are to lead their wives and family as women intelligently are to submit to the leadership of their husbands. In the church, while men and women share equally in the blessings of salvation, some governing and teaching roles are restricted to men.

An organization like CBMW is needed because the gender issue is so complex, and the consequences for violating God's Word in this area are so devastating. We hope that you will benefit from the critical ministry of CBMW as we help the church deal biblically with gender issues.

See the excellent CBMW website.

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Screwtape on the "Same Old Thing"
From C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters

The horror of the Same Old Thing is one of the most valuable passions we have produced in the human heart—an endless source of heresies in religion, folly in counsel, infidelity in marriage, and inconstancy in friendship.

The humans live in time, and experience reality successively. To experience much of it, therefore, they must experience many different things; in other words, they must experience change. . . . But since He does not wish them to make change, any more than eating, an end in itself, He has balanced the love of change in them by a love of permanence. He has contrived to gratify both tastes together on the very world He has made, by that union of change and permanence which we call Rhythm.

But the greatest triumph of all is to elevate his horror of the Same Old Thing into a philosophy so that nonsense in the intellect may reinforce corruption in the will. . . . Of a proposed course of action He wants men, so far as I can see, to ask very simple questions; is it righteous? is it prudent? is it possible?

For the descriptive adjective 'unchanged' we have substituted the emotional adjective 'stagnant'. We have trained them to think of the Future as a promised land which favoured heroes attain—not as something which everyone reaches at the rate of sixty minutes an hour.

Remember, the present is the only time in which any duty can be done or grace received. Don't be duped by super-spirituality. Embrace the "ordinary" and ask the Lord to provide daily bread.


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A Story of John the Apostle, by Eusebius (Church Historian, c. 263-c.339)


John had poured his life into the young man. The young man was a true, growing disciple. When John left town he committed him to the care of a certain bishop. Upon his return, the bishop informed John that the young man is now "dead." He is "dead to faith." He is longer one of us. John tore his clothes and wept. "Where is he," cried the apostle. "He's in the hills with the robbers," the bishop replied. John said, "give me your horse." John galloped off into the hills.

Eusebius writes:

But John, forgetting his age, pursued him with all his might, crying out, ‘Why, my son, do you flee from me, your own [spiritual] father, unarmed, aged? Fear not, there is still hope. I will give account to Christ for you. For you will I give up my life. Stand, believe; Christ has sent me.’

And he, when he heard, first stopped and looked down; then he threw away his arms, and then trembled and wept bitterly. And when the old man approached, he embraced him, making confession with lamentations as he was able, baptizing himself a second time with tears, and concealing only his right hand.

But John, pledging himself, and assuring him on oath that he would find forgiveness with the Saviour, besought him, fell upon his knees, kissed his right hand itself as if now purified by repentance, and led him back to the church. And making intercession for him with copious prayers, and struggling together with him in continual fastings, and subduing his mind by various utterances, he did not depart, as they say, until he had restored him to the church, furnishing a great example of true repentance and a great proof of regeneration, a trophy of a visible resurrection.

Let us not grow weary in well doing to our fellow church family members. Each one of us will, at some point, find ourselves on both sides of the chase.


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Quotations from the Sunday sermon

You are born of him. You are growing in Him. You will be like Him.

It is impossible for you to embrace truth, be obedient, love other people until you have this new spiritual DNA implanted in you by the Holy Spirit, until you have been adapted into the family of God, until sin begins to die in your life.

Remember, God sacrifices His natural Son for His adapted children.

I read in a periodical the other day that the fundamental thing is how we think of God. By God Himself, it is not! How God thinks of us is not only more important, but infinitely more important. Indeed, how we think of Him is of no importance except insofar as it is related to how He thinks of us. In the end that Face which is the delight or the terror of the universe must be turned upon each of us either with one expression or with the other, either conferring glory inexpressible or inflicting shame that can never be cured or disguised.

It is written that we shall 'stand before' Him, shall appear, shall be inspected. The promise of glory is the promise, almost incredible and only possible by the work of Christ, that some of us, that any of us who really chooses, shall actually survive that examination, shall find approval, shall please God.

C.S. Lewis

In vain the fancy strives to paint
The moment after death;
The glories which surround the saint
When yielding up his breath.
This much—and this is all we know,
They are supremely blest;
Have done with sin, and care, and woe,
And with their Saviour rest.

Spurgeon


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Important Upcoming Events

Sunday, May 3:
Senior Breakfast and joining of new members.

Sunday, May 10:
David Tigrett will report on his ministry in Latvia and Lithuania at the evening service.

Sunday, May 17:
Rev. Brian Sorgenfei (New RUF Campus Minister at MSU) preaching, church luncheon for the entire congregation following morning worship.

Sunday, June 7
New summer Sunday evening series begins: “Manhood and Womanhood: A Christian Perspective on Roles, Rules, and Responsibilities.”

Agape and Koinonia Sunday School Class:
“Providence and the Sovereignty of God,” taught by Clint Guenther

Veritas Sunday School Class:
Men: Ten Questions to Diagnose Your Spiritual Health, written by Donald Whitney
Women: Faithful Women & Their Extraordinary God, written by Noël Piper


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Congratulations Graduates!

Congratulations to our 2009 High School graduates on a job well done. We are so proud of each one. They are Murry Adams, Garrison Barger, Amanda Hall, Robert Morgan, and Georgia Hart Smith. The Senior Breakfast will be Sunday morning, May 3 at 8:00 a.m in the fellowship hall. It is for all the graduates and their parents.



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The Pastor’s Perspective
By Brad Mercer

Summer Sunday Nights

Look for more detailed information coming soon on our summer Sunday evening series, “Manhood and Womanhood: A Christian Perspective on Roles, Rules, and Responsibilities.” This series will emphasize the practical aspects of God’s design for men and women in their relationships with one another.

Beginning Sunday evening, June 7, I will lead us through a study of the Bible’s teaching on issues such as masculinity and femininity, authority and equality, singleness and marriage, roles in the church, responsibilities at home, and gender confusion in the culture.

The Cost of Discipleship

“When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.” This is how Dietrich Bonhoeffer summarizes the essence of discipleship in his classic, The Cost of Discipleship.

Bonhoeffer possessed a rare combination of academic giftedness and love for people. By time he was twenty-four years old, he was lecturing on systematic theology at the University of Berlin. He was known for his humility and his deep concern for the spiritual lives of his students.

When Hitler came to power in 1933, Bonhoeffer concluded that he could best serve Christ by moving out of the academy and into the church. “I cannot get away from Jeremiah 45,” he said. “And do you seek great things for yourself? Seek them not, for behold, I am bringing disaster upon all flesh, declares the Lord. But I will give you your life as a prize of war in all places to which you may go” (Jeremiah 45:5). After openly denouncing Hitler for setting himself up as idol and a god, Bonhoeffer left Germany to pastor two churches in London. After a brief period back in Germany and then America, he realized that Christ was calling him back to his native land.

He returned to Germany knowing his probable fate. He ministered to oppressed and persecuted Christians throughout the country until he was arrested by the Gestapo in the home his parents on April 5, 1943. His ministry continued. He prayed for, taught, and comforted prisoners and prison guards until he was hanged by the direct order of Heinrich Himmler on April 9, 1945. Dietrich Bonhoeffer responded to Christ’s call—and died.

He knew, and embraced, the true “cost” of discipleship. Whenever I re-read this book I am confronted with my laziness, fear, and hesitation. I find myself deeply convicted by this young German Lutheran who didn’t just talk—he acted. He followed through. He served. He sacrificed.

Bonhoeffer’s words and actions teach us that grace is never “cheap.” It is “costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ.” He continues:

It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man his only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies a sinner. Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son: ‘you were bought with a price,’ and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us. Above all, it is grace because God did not reckon his Son too dear a price to pay for our life, but delivered him up for us.

Andy Crouch

Those of you who are artists, and there are many in the Delta, need to be aware of the ministry of Andy Crouch. Crouch was a campus minister at Harvard for many years, and he has just written a wonderful new book entitled, Culture Making. Check out the Culture Making website.

An Easter Carol, Christina Rossetti

Cindy Mercer, Wales, 2005

Spring bursts to-day,
For Christ is risen and all the earth’s at play.

Flash forth, thou Sun,
The rain is over and gone, its work is done.

Winter is past,
Sweet Spring is come at last, is come at last.

Bud, Fig and Vine,
Bud, Olive, fat with fruit and oil and wine.

Break forth this morn
In roses, thou but yesterday a Thorn.

Uplift thy head,
O pure white Lily through the Winter dead.

Beside your dams
Leap and rejoice, you merry-making Lambs.

All Herds and Flocks
Rejoice, all Beasts of thickets and of rocks.

Sing, Creatures, sing,
Angels and Men and Birds and everything.

All notes of Doves
Fill all our world: this is the time of loves.

A Prayer in Spring, Robert Frost

Cindy Mercer, Belhaven, 2006

Oh, give us pleasure in the flowers today;
And give us not to think so far away
As the uncertain harvest; keep us here
All simply in the springing of the year.

Oh, give us pleasure in the orchid white,
Like nothing else by day, like ghosts by night;
And make us happy in the happy bees,
The swarm dilating round the perfect trees.

And make us happy in the darting bird
That suddenly above the bees is heard,
The meteor that thrusts in with needle bill,
And off a blossom in mid air stands still.

For this is love and nothing else is love,
To which it is reserved for God above
To sanctify to what far ends he will,
But which it only needs that we fulfill.

Stem Cell Research: A Monumental Moral Shift

"President Obama is now personally responsible for research that will involve the intentional destruction of human embryos," writes Al Mohler. "This represents a monumental moral shift. The United States government is now in the business of supporting the destruction of human embryos through federal funding of stem cell research."

For outstanding comment on the moral shift that took place yesterday, see Al Mohler's blog.

Bonhoeffer on Abortion

In the blunt words of the great Lutheran pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer:

“Destruction of the embryo in the mother’s womb is a violation of the right to live which God has bestowed on this nascent life. To raise the question whether we are here concerned already with a human being or not is merely to confuse the issue. The simple fact is that God certainly intended to create a human being and that this nascent human being has been deliberately deprived of his life. And that is nothing but murder.”

Report from the Deacons
By William Patridge (Chairman)

As you know, I just returned to the Board of Deacons a few months ago and have been reminded what a sinful person I am, trying to lead sinful people. But as I work with my fellow deacons I am totally amazed and overcome by their love, their dedication and their enthusiasm to serve the members of Westminster Presbyterian Church. We are truly blessed to have such committed men serving this church.

So back to the original question, what plans do the deacons have for WPC in 2009? First, because of your generous financial support, we plan to repair the outside of the church building. You have probably noticed that we have a lot of rotten doors, windows and shutters that need to be replaced, as well as, painting; we plan to repair it all.

The second thing that we want to do in 2009 is remodel the kitchen and fellowship hall. The kitchen needs to be more user friendly and we want to improve the acoustics and appearance of the fellowship hall. If you have any suggestions or expertise in this area, please let us know.

The third thing that we want to do this year is to reinstate committees and ministry teams. We are studying a book by Tim Keller that Stephen Pillow picked up in Nashville at a Keller conference. We hope through our studies to get new ideas and insights into how to make our teams more productive. If anyone is interested in serving on a committee or a ministry team and would like to have a copy of this book Resources for Deacons, please call one of the deacons.

The Pastor’s Perspective
By Brad Mercer

The letter of 1 John was written against the background of proto-Gnosticism. These false teachers peddled spiritual fulfillment (in this life) with no need for obedience, and eternal happiness (in heaven) with no need for resurrected bodies.

“We hold the secret key,” they claimed. “Follow us, and you will be free from the messiness of daily, ordinary, bodily life.” “We will help you escape! Join us.”

These days, dematerialized, elitist self-spiritualities abound. Neo-Gnostic connoisseurs of the sublime are happy to let the unenlightened in on the secret: spirituality without the inconvenience of creation, sin, morality, people we don’t like, and (most attractive of all) God. What a deal! A spiritual inside track without the messiness of matter.

Americans were shown the way (unfortunately) by Ralph Waldo Emerson:

Standing on the bare ground—my head bathed by the blithe air and uplifted into infinite space—all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eyeball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part and parcel of God.

I can feel my feet leaving the ground! Actually, this vision is not very appealing to me—but very popular these days.

Contrast this with Eugene Peterson’s description in Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places of holiness with our feet on the ground:

A primary task of the community of Jesus is to maintain this lifelong cultivation of love in all the messiness of its families, neighborhoods, congregations, and missions. Life is intricate, demanding, glorious, deeply, and God-honoring, but—and here’s the thing—never a finished product, never an accomplishment, always flawed in some degree or other.

So why define our identity in terms that can never be satisfied? There are so many easier ways to give meaning and significance to our human condition: giving assent to a creed or keeping a prescribed moral code are the most common in congregations.

Belief and behavior are essential, but as the defining mark of the Christian they lack one thing—relationship. They are both prone to abstractions or programs. Abstractions (learning right belief) are good: programs (learning right behavior) are good; but it is also possible to master the abstractions and carry out the programs impersonally. In fact, it is far easier if done impersonally.

Our goal is holiness and fear of the Lord—practiced in the midst of daily, ordinary, feet-on-the-ground life. This character is cultivated by Bible intake, personal prayer, and corporate worship, and embodied in the messiness that comes with particular places and particular people.

May God help us embrace the truth of the Gospel, seek to be obedient, and love one another—step by step, day by day.

Willing Slaves of the Welfare State?

Last night I re-read C. S. Lewis' essay on the coming welfare state. This essay is not familiar to most Christians, yet it is perfect for our times. Read this essay!

Is Progress Possible? Willing Slaves of the Welfare State*

PROGRESS MEANS MOVEMENT IN A DESIRED direction, and we do not all desire the same things for our species. In 'Possible Worlds" Professor Haldane pictured a future in which Man, foreseeing that Earth would soon be uninhabitable, adapted himself for migration to Venus by drastically modifying his physiology and abandoning justice, pity and happiness. The desire here is for mere survival. Now I care far more how humanity lives than how long. Progress, for me, means increasing goodness and happiness of individual lives. For the species, as for each man, mere longevity seems to me a contemptible ideal.

I therefore go even further than C. P. Snow in removing the H-bomb from the centre of the picture. Like him, I am not certain whether if it killed one-third of us (the one-third I belong to), this would be a bad thing for the remainder; like him, I don't think it will kill us all. But suppose it did? As a Christian I take it for granted that human history will some day end; and I am offering Omniscience no advice as to the best date for that consummation. I am more concerned by what the Bomb is doing already.

One meets young people who make the threat of it a reason for poisoning every pleasure and evading every duty in the present. Didn't they know that, Bomb or no Bomb, all men die (many in horrible ways)? There's no good moping and sulking about it.

Having removed what I think a red herring, I return to the real question. Are people becoming, or likely to become, better or happier? Obviously this allows only the most conjectural answer. Most individual experience (and there is no other kind) never gets into the news, let alone the history books; one has an imperfect grasp even of one's own. We are reduced to generalities. Even among these it is hard to strike a balance. Sir Charles enumerates many real ameliorations. Against these we must set Hiroshima, Black and Tans, Gestapo, Ogpu, brain-washing, the Russian slave camps. Perhaps we grow kinder to children; but then we grow less kind to the old. Any G.P.[2-A general practitioner (doctor)] will tell you that even prosperous people refuse to look after their parents. 'Can't they be got into some sort of Home?' says Goneril.

More useful, I think, than an attempt at balancing, is the reminder that most of these phenomena, good and bad, are made possible by two things. These two will probably determine most of what happens to us for some time.

The first is the advance, and increasing application, of science. As a means to the ends I care for, this is neutral. We shall grow able to cure, and to produce, more diseases --bacterial war, not bombs, might ring down the curtain-- to alleviate, and to inflict, more pains, to husband, or to waste, the resources of the planet more extensively. We can become either more beneficent or more mischievous. My guess is we shall do both; mending one thing and marring another, removing old miseries and producing new ones, safeguarding ourselves here and endangering ourselves there.

The second is the changed relation between Government and subjects. Sir Charles mentions our new attitude to crime. I will mention the trainloads of Jews delivered at the German gas-chambers. It seems shocking to suggest a common element, but I think one exists. On the humanitarian view all crime is pathological; it demands not retributive punishment but cure. This separates the criminal's treatment from the concepts of justice and desert; a 'just cure' is meaningless.

On the old view public opinion might protest against a punishment (it protested against our old penal code) as excessive, more than the man 'deserved'; an ethical question on which anyone might have an opinion. But a remedial treatment can be judged only by the probability of its success; a technical question on which only experts can speak. Thus the criminal ceases to be a person, a subject of rights and duties, and becomes merely an object on which society can work. And this is, in principle, how Hitler treated the Jews. They were objects; killed not for ill desert but because, on his theories, they were a disease in society. If society can mend, remake, and unmake men at its pleasure, its pleasure may, of course, be humane or homicidal. The difference is important. But, either way, rulers have become owners.

Observe how the 'humane' attitude to crime could operate. If crimes are diseases, why should diseases be treated differently from crimes? And who but the experts can define disease? One school of psychology regards my religion as a neurosis. If this neurosis ever becomes inconvenient to Government, what is to prevent my being subjected to a compulsory 'cure'? It may be painful; treatments sometimes are. But it will be no use asking, 'What have I done to deserve this?' The Straightener will reply: 'But, my dear fellow, no one's blaming you. We no longer believe in retributive justice. We're healing you.'

This would be no more than an extreme application of the political philosophy implicit in most modern communities. It has stolen on us unawares. Two wars necessitated vast curtailments of liberty, and we have grown, though grumblingly, accustomed to our chains. The increasing complexity and precariousness of our economic life have forced Government to take over many spheres of activity once left to choice or chance. Our intellectuals have surrendered first to the slave-philosophyof Hegel, then to Marx, finally to the linguistic analysts.

As a result, classical political theory, with its Stoical, Christian, and juristic key-conceptions (natural law, the value of the individual, the rights of man), has died. The modern State exists not to protect our rights but to do us good or make us good -- anyway, to do something to us or to make us something. Hence the new name 'leaders' for those who were once 'rulers'. We are less their subjects than their wards, pupils, or domestic animals. There is nothing left of which we can say to them, 'Mind your own business.' Our whole lives are their business.

I write 'they' because it seems childish not to recognize that actual government is and always must be oligarchical. Our effective masters must be more than one and fewer than all. But the oligarchs begin to regard us in a new way.

Here, I think, lies our real dilemma. Probably we cannot, certainly we shall not, retraceour steps. We are tamed animals (some with kind, some with cruel, masters) and should probably starve if we got out of our cage. That is one horn of the dilemma. But in an increasingly planned society, how much of what I value can survive? That is the other horn.

I believe a man is happier, and happy in a richer way, if he has 'the freeborn mind'. But I doubt whether he can have this without economic independence, which the new society is abolishing. For economic independence allows an education not controlled by Government; and in adult life it is the man who needs, and asks, nothing of Government who can criticise its acts and snap his fingers at its ideology. Read Montaigne; that's the voice of a man with his legs under his own table, eating the mutton and turnips raised on his own land. Who will talk like that when the State is everyone's schoolmaster and employer? Admittedly, when man was untamed, such liberty belonged only to the few. I know. Hence the horrible suspicion that our only choice is between societies with few freemen and societies with none.

Again, the new oligarchy must more and more base its claim to plan us on its claim to knowledge. If we are to be mothered, mother must know best. This means they must increasingly rely on the advice of scientists, till in the end the politicians proper become merely the scientists' puppets. Technocracy is the form to which a planned society must tend. Now I dread specialists in power because they are specialists speaking outside their special subjects. Let scientists tell us about sciences. But government involves questions about the good for man, and justice, and what things are worth having at what price; and on these a scientific training gives a man's opinion no added value. Let the doctor tell me I shall die unless I do so-and-so; but whether life is worth having on those terms is no more a question for him than for any other man.

Thirdly, I do not like the pretensions of Government --the grounds on which it demands my obedience—to be pitched too high. I don't like the medicine-man's magical pretensions nor the Bourbon's Divine Right. This is not solely because I disbelieve in magic and in Bossuet's Politique.[4- Jacques Benigne Bossuet, Politique tiree des propres paroles de L'Ecriture-Sainte (Paris, 1709).] I believe in God, but I detest theocracy. For every Government consists of mere men and is, strictly viewed, a makeshift; if it adds to its commands 'Thus saith the Lord', it lies, and lies dangerously.

On just the same ground I dread government in the name of science. That is how tyrannies come in. In every age the men who want us under their thumb, if they have any sense, will put forward the particular pretension which the hopes and fears of that age render most potent. They 'cash in'. It has been magic, it has been Christianity. Now it will certainly be science. Perhaps the real scientists may not think much of the tyrants' 'science'-- they didn't think much of Hitler's racial theories or Stalin's biology. But they can be muzzled.

We must give full weight to Sir Charles's reminder that millions in the East are still half starved. To these my fears would seem very unimportant. A hungry man thinks about food, not freedom. We must give full weight to the claim that nothing but science, and science globally applied, and therefore unprecedented Government controls, can produce full bellies and medical care for the whole human race: nothing, in short, but a world Welfare State. It is a full admission of these truths which impresses upon me the extreme peril of humanity at present.

We have on the one hand a desperate need; hunger, sickness, and the dread of war. We have, on the other, the conception of something that might meet it: omnicompetent global technocracy. Are not these the ideal opportunity for enslavement? This is how it has entered before; a desperate need (real or apparent) in the one party, a power (real or apparent) to relieve it, in the other. In the ancient world individuals have sold themselves as slaves, in order to eat. So in society. Here is a witch-doctor who can save us from the sorcerers -- a war-lord who can save us from the barbarians -- a Church that can save us from Hell. Give them what they ask, give ourselves to them bound and blindfold, if only they will! Perhaps the terrible bargain will be made again. We cannot blame men for making it. We can hardly wish them not to. Yet we can hardly bear that they should.

The question about progress has become the question whether we can discover any way of submitting to the worldwide paternalism of a technocracy without losing all personal privacy and independence. Is there any possibility of getting the super Welfare State's honey and avoiding the sting?

Let us make no mistake about the sting. The Swedish sadness is only a foretaste. To live his life in his own way, to call his house his castle, to enjoy the fruits of his own labour, to educate his children as his conscience directs, to save for their prosperity after his death --- these are wishes deeply ingrained in civilised man. Their realization is almost as necessary to our virtues as to our happiness. From their total frustration disastrous results both moral and psychological might follow.

All this threatens us even if the form of society which our needs point to should prove an unparalleled success. But is that certain? What assurance have we that our masters will or can keep the promise which induced us to sell ourselves? Let us not be deceived by phrases about 'Man taking charge of his own destiny'. All that can really happen is that some men will take charge of the destiny of the others. They will be simply men; none perfect; some greedy, cruel and dishonest. The more completely we are planned the more powerful they will be. Have we discovered some new reason why, this time, power should not corrupt as it has done before?

*C.S. Lewis, God in the Dock (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1970), 311-316.

A Christian Book Review
By Jere Stansel

Mimosa, by Amy Carmichael

A friend gave me a little book for Christmas, Mimosa by Amy Carmichael, and I would like to recommend it especially to the women in the church. It’s an easy read, some 150 pages with brief chapters, three to five pages each. Mimosa is a young Hindu girl who spends only one afternoon with missionaries in a Christian school in India. Without owning a Bible or even knowing how to read, Mimosa is nevertheless supernaturally changed by that one afternoon’s engagement. The book chronicles Mimosa’s love for an almost-nameless God, as she follows Him, with no Christian support, through trials, temptations, and hardships in a rigid, cruel caste system in India. Mimosa is a spell-binding story of the “Gardener who had not forgotten His little plants.”

Against the backdrop of Mimosa’s captivating story is the beauty and delicacy of the storyteller’s diction and style. The author, Amy Carmichael, is of Irish descent but spent most of her adult life (from 1895 to her death in 1951) as a Presbyterian missionary in India. The story is universal in its appeal and will give new wings to your faith and certainly heighten your trust in God’s care of His children.

Mission to Lagniappe

Be sure check out the photographs of the recent Mission trip to Lagniappe!

Veritas Class Report
By Lee Coleman

The Lord has richly blessed the Veritas class at Westminster this past year. We have celebrated the expectation of covenant children and the joy of weddings. Old friends have moved away and new ones have joined us. We have endured the passing of loved ones and the illnesses of friends and family. But in all things, God has continued to show us His wondrous grace as we pray for one another and turn to His word for guidance. Our study of the Gospel of Mark is nearly complete as we move forward week by week through Christ’s life and teachings, and ultimately His death and resurrection. The Holy Spirit has used our time of study to reveal new insights into these familiar scriptures as we consider again what great things Jesus did for us here on earth and continues to do for us at the right hand of God.

The Pastor’s Perspective
By Brad Mercer

We have much to look forward to in 2009!

New Sunday Morning Sermon Series

Beginning on Sunday, February 1 we will begin a new Sunday morning sermon series: “Truth and Love: The Letters of John.” We will explore the Apostle John’s three letters in our search to understand and apply the interrelationship of sound doctrine with sound living.

Agape and Koinonia Class

Clint Guenther has been leading us through an outstanding study of C.S. Lewis’s, The Screwtape Letters. When Clint finishes this study toward the end of January, Gene Stansel will begin a new series. His title will be “The Church: A Covenant Family.” The class will cover the Bible’s teaching regarding our place with the fellowship of the local church. As such, we will consider both doctrinal and practical issues surrounding our responsibilities as members of a church family.

Veritas Class

Beginning soon, Stephen Pillow and Lee Coleman will lead a study through Tim Keller’s new book, The Prodigal God. Be sure to read Lee Coleman’s class report.

Women’s Ministries

Be looking for more information soon on women’s ministry at Westminster. Cindy’s Discipleship Groups are full and ready go.

Youth Ministries

See Trey O’Brien’s Youth Ministry report included in the newsletter. Please continue to pray for the Session as we continue our search for an Assistant Minister.

Communicant’s Class

Beginning on February 1, 2009, during the Sunday school hour, I will be teaching an optional course on the five questions of church membership. This is an optional class available to sixth graders and older. I am really looking forward to this! More details coming later.

New Pew Bibles

The Session recently approved the purchase of new pew Bibles. The new Bible will be the English Standard Version. This is one the finest translations of Scripture available today. Most PCA churches are moving to this Bible. I have listed several endorsements:

“The translation is outstanding. The ESV achieves a new standard in accurate Bible translations for our day.” Dr. R. C. Sproul

“We are building all our future ministry around the ESV.” Dr. John Piper

“The ESV embodies both word-for-word exactness and easy readability. It has quickly become my primary Bible for both personal use and public teaching.” Dr. Jerry Bridges

“We use the English Standard Version as our church Bible because we are passionate about God’s Word—every last word of it—and because we want our children to have the best available translation for reading, teaching, preaching, memorizing, and serious Bible study.” Dr. Philip Ryken

Youth Ministry Report
By Trey O’Brien

Happy New Year from the Interim Youth Team! On behalf of the IYT, I would like to thank all of you for your prayers, encouragement, and support (especially Wednesday night meals) during the summer and fall of 2008. The Lord has been so gracious to this non-seminary trained group this year in giving us the privilege to be with the youth of WPC and blessing our time together.

We had a great fall semester as we have forged through specific studies on Sunday mornings and Wednesday evenings. We also had the opportunity to take a small group of seniors to RUF Ole Miss back in October---it was very exciting and edifying. To ensure no bias, we plan to take a similar group this spring semester to either RUF MSU or DSU.

Lee and Amy Coleman have taught through the book of Mark with the high school on Wednesday nights during the fall semester and will continue with this study into the spring semester. Katherine Dyksterhouse was facilitating discussion on a Susan Hunt study entitled “Becoming a True Woman” with the junior high girls until she was put on bed rest mid-fall semester (please keep praying for her, Gary and Baby “D”). Amy Coleman is now continuing on with that study. Elizabeth O’Brien initiated Susan Hunt’s study on Sunday mornings and is teaching through the chapters as a way of discipling the junior high girls towards Biblical womanhood.

I concluded the study on James mid-December and will be embarking on a short 4-5 week study on the Holy Spirit followed by a study through the book of Ephesians.

Please pray for the IYT: that we would humble ourselves before God and His Word and that He would guide us in how we should teach, serve, and love the youth of our church to a deeper fellowship with Jesus Christ. Please also mark your calendars for RYM summer conferences. The Jr. High conference will be June 15-19 followed by the Sr. High conference July 6-11. We have to begin reserving spaces February 1st. We will be making further announcements closer to this date to ensure that our youth have the opportunity to attend.