A ‘measured’ response?
I’m fed up of ‘measured’ responses to major sins.
David Roberston
(Farm Security Administration / United States Office of War Information / Migant mother
by Dorothea Lange / 1936)
Fed up.
This one well-recognized photograph by Dorothea Lange became the face, the poster child
if you will, of the plight of most Americans during the height of the Great Depression
and The Dust Bowl.
It is an image of a tired woman who is past fed up…who is now devoid and resigned to the
measured response offered by a Government who, in her small corner of the world,
has let her and her children down.
Ms. Lange later explained after the photograph was published:
“I saw and approached the hungry and desperate mother, as if drawn by a magnet.
I do not remember how I explained my presence or my camera to her,
but I do remember she asked me no questions.
I made five exposures, working closer and closer from the same direction.
I did not ask her name or her history. She told me her age, that she was thirty-two.
She said that they had been living on frozen vegetables from the surrounding fields,
and birds that the children killed. She had just sold the tires from her car to buy food.
There she sat in that lean-to tent with her children huddled around her,
and seemed to know that my pictures might help her, and so she helped me.
There was a sort of equality about it.
(Wikipedia)
This particular photograph was obviously taken at a time when color film was the
exception and not the norm.
I strongly believe that the black and white photograph speaks more profoundly to the
desperate depths and hopelessness of this particular time of America’s situation
during the dark and heavy days of the 1930’s than that of a photograph that could have
been taken in color.
All of the sensory overloads, the eye-popping, eye-catching pizzaz is pared down to
the obvious harsh reality of black and white.
Nothing in between.
Nothing hidden.
Nothing left to cover up the ugly.
There are no ifs or ands…
Just what is…
Plain.
Simple.
Hard.
Desperate.
Resigned.
Hopeless.
That same sense of importance of the simple, of the bold black and white versus the
distracting and color, came barrelling to mind when reading David Roberston’s response to the
Chruch of Scotland’s take on Transgenderism, homosexuality and same-sex marriage.
His is the observation of one church denomination’s take on the culture wars and the church’s
own politically correct “Christian” response cloaked in naivete and falsehoods.
The Chruch of Scotland is no different from most of our current Christian body
denominations and their seemingly awkward desire to “play nice” with a culture that
blatantly flaunts its disdain for Christianity and the very Word of God.
David Roberston is fed up…
I too am fed up.
Fed up by measured responses to blatant sin.
Why aren’t more Christians fed up?
Sin is sin…the acceptance of such by a culture desperately trying to rewrite the narrative
is unacceptable…
So why then are so many members of the Christian body, our Churches, accepting the
measured responses to sin.
A ‘measured’ response?
I’m fed up of ‘measured’ responses to major sins.
Thank God that Elijah didn’t offer a ‘measured response’ to the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel;
or that Paul avoided a ‘measured response’ to the foolish Galatians;
and that Jesus wasn’t ‘measured’ and ‘Christlike’ when he told the Pharisees in public that
they were like whitewashed tombs, twice dead!
Note our Lord’s lack of measure when he drove the moneychangers out of the temple with a whip!
Or his rudeness when he said that the lukewarmness of the Laodiceans made him sick.
One can only suspect that CFS (Covenant Fellowship Scotland) would have been appalled at Paul’s lack of measure in suggesting to Timothy that the Judaising circumcisers should go the whole way and emasculate themselves!
David Roberston
Apostasy?
Is that not too strong a word?
I’m currently reading John Owens Nature and Causes of Apostasy from the Gospel
(in volume 7 of his works).
It is a stunning and apposite work for my own denomination and for the Church of Scotland.
I think there is a danger of apostasy in the Free Church,
as there is in any other church – but I thought the following was particularly appropriate –
“Men are apt to please themselves,
to approve of their own state and condition,
wherein they have framed unto themselves rest and satisfaction.
Churches content themselves with their outward order and administrations,
especially when accompanied with secular advantages,
and contend fiercely that all is well, and the gospel sufficiently complied withal,
whilst their outward constitution is preserved and their laws of order kept inviolate.”
(John Owen – Works vol.7 p.53).
Covenant Fellowship Scotland also intends to provide leadership.
Many orthodox people in the Church of Scotland are shocked and dismayed
by the trajectory which the Church has been on for several years.
Many are losing heart, looking for leadership and feel powerless.
We have frequently been asked, ‘Is no-one doing anything?’
It is imperative that Covenant Fellowship Scotland offers people a rallying point
for dissent now, as well as leadership for the future.”
I’ve heard a great deal recently from folks who just think total acceptance is the
the path of least resistance.
The turning of the blind eye to any and all while burying heads in the sands of
ignorance and compliance.
The give and take that is more give…taken… and soon to be gone.
“Cry aloud; do not hold back; lift up your voice like a trumpet;
declare to my people their transgression, to the house of Jacob their sins.
Isaiah 58:1
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