“They are not interested in the science called virology. It is more like the science of compliance.”
Pastor Doug Wilson of Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho, took to his blog this morning to respond to the show of force against GraceLife Church in Canada.
Wilson, who became more widely known after his series of high profile debates with famed atheist Christopher Hitchens, in which Wilson offered stiff competition and a steady stream of witty comebacks (here’s a clip from the documentary that demonstrates this well).
Wilson’s piece, titled ‘Putting on Our Coates Coats’ confronts the disturbing news that spread across social media last week.
But one of the things that has been revealed as a consequence, at least for those who have kept their eyes open, is the exact nature of the end game we are facing. That end game is control—control without brakes, control without limit, control without any system of restraints.
Coates recently served over a month in jail, only to be released and see his GraceLife Church building surrounded by fencing put up by the government. They were shut down, resulting in protests and an even larger police response.
Wilson argued that “ideas have consequences” and highlighted the differences between worldviews.
People act the way they do for reasons. As Richard Weaver taught us, ideas have consequences.
If you believe in God, if you think that the cosmos was created from nothing, if you believe that mankind was created in the image of God, then it is possible for you to believe that we have rights. And by rights, I do not mean privileges, but rather actual rights. These rights cannot be revoked by bureaucratic fiat, they cannot be abridged by executive order, and they cannot be adjusted or trimmed by the winners of elections, stolen or otherwise.
But if you don’t believe in God, if you believe that this material universe is a meaningless concourse of atoms, if you believe that life originated all by itself accidentally in a primordial goo-pond somewhere, and that we are simply simians that learned to shave, then it follows of necessity that we do not have any rights at all. We are nothing more than meat and bones and protoplasm.
Wilson said “the real travesty” occurs when followers of God go along with “the dictates of those who affirm the second scenario” and shouldn’t leave us surprised when a pastor like Coates stands up and “acts like a real pastor.”
He went on to argue that “flat refusal to cooperate” is the only way out.
The secularists have no external brake or check. They have no God outside their system because their system is their god. This is why they serve a god of power and control. That means that they deem any actions lawful if they manage to leverage their power in such a way as to control the outcomes. Their system is a system of natural selection, survival of the fittest, and so they act accordingly.
They also serve the father of lies, and hence have no problem with lying. If lying doesn’t work, they won’t do it, but if it does they will. And whether or not it works has nothing to do with whether or not we know they are lying. It is possible for their plan to be visible to us and still work.
“We have no business appealing to their god with any hope of getting the kind of determination that we would get if we were appealing to our God,” Wilson said.
“You can’t gather figs from thistles. You can’t get sweet water from a brackish spring. You know. You can’t order a Whopper at MacDonalds. You will not get Christian blessings from pagan gods.“
You can read the entire piece by clicking HERE.