Rev. Raphael Warnock is in a runoff in Georgia against Republican Kelly Loeffler for a valuable Senate seat. Warnock is a Democrat and minister. In a sermon, he attacked Republican senators who passed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. He claimed such a vote was a “vicious and evil attack on the most vulnerable people in America” and compared the tax cuts to Herod who was “willing to kill children” to preserve wealth and power.
He added that the Senate “decided by a slim majority to pick the pockets of the poor, the sick, the old, and the yet unborn in order to line the pockets of the ultra-rich.” The poor don’t pay any Federal income tax.
Here’s the thing. Herod was a puppet of Rome. What was Caesar Augustus implementing that sent Joseph and a pregnant Mary to Bethlehem? A census so the Roman Empire could collect more taxes from everyone, including the poor.
God and Government
In 1982, the three-volume God and Government series fanned the flames of this national worldview awakening, establishing that the character of a nation and its people depends on their relationship with God as revealed in Holy Scripture. Relying on clear historical and biblical research, author Gary DeMar demonstrated how America had been great and how she could be great again.
Buy NowOne more thing. It was that 2017 tax cut that led to the lowest black unemployment in US history. The same is true of black youth unemployment. When people have more money to spend (and this includes the rich), they tend to buy things, invest in businesses, and give more money away to the poor.
Warnock dared to bring up “the yet unborn.” He is a forceful supporter of killing the unborn if that’s a mother’s choice. This is coming from a supposed Christian minister. As a result,
A coalition of African American ministers and pro-life activist Alveda King have urged pro-choice pastor and Senate candidate Raphael Warnock to reject the “systemic racism of abortion.”
In an open letter addressed to Warnock and sent out last Friday, King and the faith leaders told the candidate that they felt “compelled to confront your most recent statements on abortion.”
“As a Christian pastor and as a Black leader, you have a duty to denounce the evil of abortion, which kills a disproportionate number of Black children. Your open advocacy of abortion is a scandal to the faith and to the Black community,” stated the letter, in part.
Rev. Warnock is not appealing to the Bible as his moral standard on the issue of killing unborn babies. He and his fellow Democrats have taken a page from the situational ethicist Joseph Fletcher. We don’t talk much about situational ethics today, but it is the driving force behind all of what we are seeing take place—everything from abortion and homosexuality to transgenderism and fake news (if it’s for the greater good as defined by the situational ethicists). Here’s what Fletcher said about choice and abortion:
A fetus is a parasite, tolerable ethically only when welcome to its hostess. If a woman doesn’t want a fetus to remain growing in her body, she should be free to rid herself of the unwelcome intruder. (National Catholic Reporter 9 (March 2, 1973), 12. From a letter written to Charles E. Fager and part of the 1975 Judicial Committee hearings on abortion: Part 3, page 125. It can also be found in Donald G. Bloesch, Crumbling Foundations: Death and Rebirth in an Age of Upheaval (Grand Rapids, MI: Academie Books/Zondervan, 1984), 146.)
Modern-day physicians are taught this type of situational ethic in medical school and it’s been carried over in the political sphere. For example, Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam, a former pediatric neurologist who took an oath to “do no harm,” when asked what would happen if a disabled baby survived the abortion attempt, said the following:
The infant would be delivered. The infant would be kept comfortable. The infant would be resuscitated if that’s what the mother and the family desired. And then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother. (Quoted in Devan Cole, “Virginia governor faces backlash over comments supporting late-term abortion bill” (January 31, 2019): https://cnn.it/34Fht9Y
There you have it. Rev. Warnock is what the Bible calls a “false shepherd” (Ezek. 34). The prophets also denounced political rulers like Gov. Northam for the way they refuse to follow God’s laws that end up hurting the poor:
How the faithful city has become a harlot,
She who was full of justice!
Righteousness once lodged in her,
But now murderers.
Your silver has become dross,
Your drink diluted with water.
Your rulers are rebels
And companions of thieves;
Everyone loves a bribe
And chases after rewards.
They do not defend the orphan,
Nor does the widow’s plea come before them (Isa 1:21–23).
Politics has become a place where rulers entrap the people in promise-programs to make them perpetually dependent on the State while the rulers get ever richer and powerful and exert more control over the masses.
The Establishment and Limits of Civil Government
The Bible tells us that civil rulers are ministers of God. The Greek word translated ministers is the same word used to describe ministers in a church. There are civil ministers and church ministers. Both serve as God's ministers within their jurisdictions. It is unbiblical to assume that civil rulers are autonomous, that they can legitimately rule independent of Gods limiting authority of them. It is a serious mistake to take Paul's instructions in Romans 13 and claim that civil rulers cannot be challenged by the citizenry
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