Letters at the Tale End of July

I suspect you would agree that one of the key ingredients of a successful church is building tight-knit communities. The method most churches today use in the Evangelical world is simply adding programs. We have small groups, youth groups, men’s ministries, women’s ministries, retirees ministries, and the annual retreat for the wives of retired firefighters.

The problem I have with all of this is how intensive it is on Church staff. Instead of teaching, they become event planners.

My question is this: it does not seem like your church follows that method, so how do you go about building this wonderful community that Moscow seems to be so well known for?

Average Pastor

I just got done reading your article on “The Jim jams over Blasphemy laws”, and pardon my ignorance, but are you seriously calling for the death penalty for blasphemers? I’m sorry but if that is your position, then how are we any better than the ayatollahs of Islam? Please help me understand.
Thank you.

Jay

How do you think this plays out Doug? You’re pushing an agenda that a VERY LARGE part of the nation has no interest in. Are you going to continue trying to impose your theocratic government on a largely secular society? I don’t see how this plays out peacefully. We have the head of the Heritage Foundation telling us your theocratic, plutocratic, anti-democratic and anti-American revolution will be bloodless, if we on the left lay down and let you take our rights and freedoms. You can’t seriously expect us to let you do that . . . so . . . Douggie . . . how does this play out?
I have NEVER tried to stop you from worshiping Jesus. But you want to stop me from being secular. I will NEVER allow you to do that Douggf**k.
NEVER.

Adam

I continue to follow your blog, because I love much of what you have to say. While we don’t agree on everything, I find great comfort in much of what you have to say, and find your rhetorical style to be very satisfying and admittedly funny at times. However, because I love what you have to say, and love the ministries y’all oversee over there in Moscow, I must bring a concern and a criticism.
In your post, “A Deeper Right Than Being Right”, I find much of your advice helpful. Of course we should be more concerned with obeying the truth, than beating others over the head with it. We should indeed love others with kindness and humility, especially our brothers who err. The Bible talks about the tongue being dangerous and “full of deadly poison” and like a “consuming fire.” How easy is it for us, in our zeal to correct others, to forget these very important warnings?
However, as much as I love the Moscow Mood, I see quite a bit of this emanating from Moscow, sticking out like a dirty spot on a clear window. To be clear, I see this in more than just Moscow, I see it in the Reformed Church in general, Moscow being a part of it.
As someone who has been part of the denomination on the receiving end of your famed “serrated edge” (I’m PCA), how have you followed this command in regards to your own brethren? You frequently make blanket statements about the weak preaching of modern evangelicals, which while it does exist, and does need to be answered, you are firing without aiming.
I’m fond of calling you a verbal artillery line, one which is quite the sight to behold when pointed in the right direction, however, the prophetic language that you often spew from those smoking barrels is sometimes poorly aimed. How have you, and Moscow, shown humility and kindness towards their brothers in your rhetoric? If we are indeed to spar with our brothers, to challenge their strength in the word, to encourage them in the faith and the right direction, can we not be too rough in those sparring matches?
Where is the humility and kindness that you encourage others to show? While warnings to the world and to the church ought to be broadcast, should not also its humility, kindness, mercy, and love? In what ways has Moscow done this? I know your famous defense for this is, “Come to Moscow and see for yourself” but for those of us who live across the country, this is not always feasible. I know this is something you hear frequently, as I’ve heard you respond to it, so what does it say if you’ve allies that love your content, that also feel slightly burned by rhetoric which arguably could be more precise in its wording?

Kenneth

I was discussing definite atonement with my family and they were stuck on the power of the cross being limited. They would have it be unlimited but only applied by the Holy Spirit to the elect. I was pondering this because that does seem appropriate but I believe Christ only died for His elect. Then I realized an assumption that I was adding to this, being individual sins and their consequences being quantifiably applied to Jesus on the cross and this may not need be the case.
Do you think it would be appropriate to say that atonement for Adam and Eve’s initial fall would require the same passion of Christ as the one He experienced in history or would his suffering be far less if He had only suffered for that?

Stephen

Adding smashmouth to incrementalism is a good rhetorical move. It’s been distressing on Twitter to encounter so many abolitionists who don’t understand the ugly tradeoffs that sometimes have to be made in politics in a fallen world.
I keep pointing out Trump gave us what he promised, whereas the Republican Party for decades gave us words on a platform but nothing else. Keeping the same strategy going with Trump is spot on, and at the same time getting abortion in due course abolished at the state level.

Mike

How much overlap or distinction would you say your view of predestination/providence has with Thomas Aquinas’ view of these things? The WCF sounds incredibly similar to his work in the Summa, Blessings.

Benjamin

Some months (years?) ago there was an article that talked about church leaders naturally preferring “soft” young men who may be the “easy” ones to minister to (so attentive, peaceable, thankful, perfect little students). This as opposed to those who may very well turn out to be the real leaders who may be more unruly, planning to sneak out late on he church camping trip etc.
Can you please let me know what article this was [in order] to revisit it.
Thank you for all you do.

Jeremy

Clarification on your chapter on the wife’s role as “ruler” in the house as raised in “How to Exasperate your Wife.” I agree that the wife has been delegated the authority of the home and concede the despot inference; I further understand the need to trust in her decisions. However, at what point does the husband have a veto over certain rules that he may reasonably disagree with? Who gets the final say?

TS

Since last autumn when I reviewed your American Milk and Honey book on Substack and posted a condensed version on Amazon (condensed due to Amazon’s length requirements), I have left you in peace. 

Today however, I read your statement, “A Rejoinder to Internet Randos on the Jews, NatCon4, and a Couple of Hindus,” which calls for a riposte.

I realize how important you are, how large is your audience and how easy it is for you to succumb to the temptation to reduce the most radical deconstructions of your thesis to the category of, as you say, irresponsible trolls who put forth “toxic talking points.” 

The validity of your critic’s arguments—and this surprises me—you judge in part by the size of their readership, “. . . I was tempted to answer them directly and individually—before remembering my rule about checking their number of followers, and then subtracting their mom and likely number of sisters. When that number comes in as low as it frequently does, I then do the right thing by not responding.”

One would think that the quality of the criticism would be the sole criterion for judging whether to defend against it. I may be in your view a non-entity with a minuscule audience; sufficient grounds, by your standard, to ignore my review.

Nonetheless, my critique of your “Two Cheers for the Talmud” section did call for a response. You haven’t done so over the course of nine months, I guess because I’m a “troll,” or” asinine,” or  have too small a following. 

Whatever your calculation, the absence of a response is telling. It has led some people among my microscopically tiny fold to surmise that you can’t offer a cogent counter-argument—no, sir, that’s not a schoolyard dare. You’re too big a fellow to be goaded into taking a swing at a gnat. I get that. On the other hand, I’m not going to shrink from observing that it would take considerable testicular fortitude to post this URL in your next Friday column.

You are a polemicist par excellence who seems to enjoy and routinely engage in point/counter-point exchanges,. Your demurral in my case would seem to indicate that my brief contra your “Cheers” for the Mishnah and Gemara, is too flimsy to merit anything like what your “responsible critics” deserve.

In the void created by the absence of your rebuttal, readers of my review will continue to judge for themselves what your silence represents. But of course you know that.

Very truly,

Michael

At one point you wisely wrote this about the term racism: “Now when racism really is a sin, what is sinful about it? The Bible doesn’t ever describe racism as a sin. What has to be present in order for the sinfulness to be present? There are two sinful elements in real racism, and this is where the sin resides. The two sins are vainglory and animosity. Racism would be racially-based vainglory and racially-based animosity. The Bible describes vainglory and malice as sinful in multiple places, and if people give way to these sins it doesn’t much matter what raw material they use. Some are vainglorious about their looks, or education, or nationality, or regional sports teams, and some are vainglorious about their race. The vainglory is the sin.”
I think the same principle can be helpful in the Jewish discussion. In many ways “antisemitism” is more of a muddled term than “racism.”
Being against Semitic people is not inherently sinful. It all boils down to why you are against them and what does God say about that. The apostle Paul says that he is against the Jews and that they are against all men. So is that sinful simply because he is going against that group? Obviously not. So all that to say, do you think abandoning the term antisemitism would bring clarity?

Joshua

I came across your reading log for this month, and am curious as to how many books you are reading all at once? Another question to you: Are the books that you log in for each month titles that you started a while back and have been plodding through? Seems like a consistent 10—with exceptions—each month.
I have read Ploductivity a few times, but I don’t see how you manage.

Josh

I hope this letter finds you well. I am writing to you about my wife. She recently saw several posts from women who claim they were attending Christ Church. They were saying that you affirmed “marital rape.”
I, myself, am finding it difficult to even define that. As Paul says that the wife’s body is the man’s and the man’s is the wife’s. So I’m not sure such a thing actually exists.
I can see a situation where a man is violently taking his wife under the influence of desire or he’s drunk, but the sex part wouldn’t be the sinful issue, correct? It would be the violence/being drunk part, correct? Or am I missing something?
Thank you, Doug. I praise God for you and your family. I have learned much from you and hope to be like you when I grow up ;)
Please let me know your thoughts on the matter and or point me in the direction of a video or blog post you might have. Also I have Canon plus if there is something on there I could look at.

Paul

This is in response to AM’s letter this week, “Femininity as a Natural Inclination”. You can definitely grow in feminine pursuits and skills! Many of them are learned skills and don’t come naturally to many women if they did not receive instruction when young. My background was probably different, but the outcome was similar. A combination of aptitude in academics and science plus unwelcome attention from men and being raised by a single working mother all led me to eschew personal beauty and femininity as a teenager and into my 20’s. A few things stand out to me that initiated change: (1) As I grew in my Christian faith, the Lord introduced me to good, fatherly men who loved me appropriately, (2) I met godly families with loving, traditional gender roles and noticed how lovely the women were (even if they were not particularly fashionable or thin, but the love their husbands had made them truly lovely), and (3) a couple work trips to France truly changed my mind about utilitarianism being superior to the pursuit of beauty. I’m currently a married middle-aged mother of many now, and I don’t think anyone would guess I struggled with this in the past, as I’ve grown as a skillful cook and have learned to dress modestly and femininely. It does take effort though, and I encourage her to find mentors in the specific areas she wants to improve. I hope my life and progress in the feminine arts might be an encouragement to AM! Kindly,

Mrs. D

I have a question about Sunday Worship. We left a church that was left leaning with our 4 young children. We found a Reformed church in our area but are concerned about something. Part of the membership vows include an oath to attend all the services of the church: Sunday School, morning and evening services and Wednesday night. These are long services with long sermons. We have disciplined children that do fine in the first service but it is an exhausting routine. We also run our own business, home school, and practice hospitality regularly. We have used Sunday to take turns watching the children after church so we can have naps and recover. We are wary of the burden of these services on our family life and the 4th commandment rest. Is this a legitimate concern? I know reformed churches have traditionally had 2 services. It’s just hard on our stage of life. Should we rework our Saturdays so that we can rest in order to do the work of Sunday?

AP

I am writing in response to the post “Letters in the Dog Days Come Early,” specifically CG’s letter about workplace lust.
I want to be charitable to CG’s struggles, because undoubtedly they are real, because it sounds like he is actively resisting, and because I am not a man and therefore cannot fully appreciate the struggles my brothers in Christ face in this area, to the same extent.
However, his question strikes me as similar to a person of minority ethnicity who is in less-than-desirable circumstances, blaming his situation on systemic racism. By saying that women in the workforce is creationally disordered, it comes across—perhaps not intentionally—as almost blaming the women for existing. And yes, I realize his point is their existence *in the workforce* rather than existence in general, but some women work out of necessity, not because they’re feminists.
What do you mean by, “It *can* be creationally disordered, *depending*” (emphasis added)? What are ways this would *not* be creationally disordered? What is a woman to do when she *has* to work? Obviously exposure can certainly exacerbate lust, but there are plenty of stories of housewives committing adultery despite presumably not having the same exposure to men that their husbands would have had to other women at work.
I write this as a woman who spent most of my twenties in a male-dominated work environment. It’s a very uncomfortable situation to be viewed as a threat for just being a woman—which I can’t help. Maybe I was wrong for being there, but when I look back, it was a decision made according to the light that I had at the time, and I did my best to honor God in the way that I lived and worked.
Side note, I can’t remember the article, but at some point either this year or last year, I think (totally not specific at all, my apologies), you made a reference to a twitter post criticizing Canon Press’s platforming of Megan Basham, and indicated that you had more you might want to say about that in a future blog post. I would be very interested in reading your perspective, if time allows you to write about it in the future!
Respectfully,

SD

A minor point- you wrote that Christ said “This is my body, which is broken for you.” I had always heard this is incorrect, that the Scriptures say “‘This is my body, which is given for you’ and then he broke the bread.” This may seem unimportant, but it matters because one important prophecy Christ fulfilled was that his body was NOT broken.

Luke

More a question, than a letter: I have been part of the conservative Presbyterian world for almost 20 years now, so my question is from the perspective of someone who loves our confessional heritage.
That said:
What is the difference between laboring to see the world bow the knee to Jesus, and working to see the world become Presbyterian? What should I refuse to yield, and what should I joyfully embrace as an expression of His Kingdom coming as it is in heaven?

Andy

I love your ministry! I am 29, and a Christian Husband and father of two. I have been employed at the USPS for over ten years but have since had a burden in my heart against delivering porn, Planned Parenthood, witchcraft and Mormonism. Grace and peace to you brother!

Samuel