Josh Benner

Category: Ethics

  • Pro-life: compromise vs practicality

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    Matt Walsh wrote an interesting piece for the DailyWire today. He was comparing the gun rights advocates to the pro-life movement.
    Walsh argues that the pro-life movement could learn from the gun rights advocates.
    The gun rights movement has a different attitude. They won’t give an inch. Ever. At all. They treat even the most mild gun restriction as a tyrannical assault on our way of life. They won’t agree that any gun should be banned. They won’t allow for any exceptions. They aren’t just in favor of gun rights. They are radically, absolutely, unequivocally in favor of gun rights. They are extremists about guns. And I don’t say that pejoratively. We ought to be extreme in our defense of our principles. Every gun rights advocate ought to be an extreme advocate. Every pro-lifer ought to be an extreme pro-lifer. That is the lesson here, I think.
    -Matt Walsh
    I normally agree with Matt Walsh but I think there’s a major flaw in his reasoning.
    Walsh argues that the gun rights advocates don’t budge, don’t give an inch, and that the pro life crowd celebrates seemingly small wins. But the gun advocates have the constitution on their side. Pro life advocates don’t (in fact, the supreme court precedent is against them).
    So the gun advocates are on top of a hill and defending their territory.
    The pro life crowd is on offense, trying to advance the agenda.
    The analogy is really rather that the gun rights advocates are similar to the pro-choice movement in that the pro-choice side also fights tooth and nail and doesn’t like to give an inch.
    Walsh criticizes the pro-life movement for being too quick to compromise. What’s the alternative? Especially when there is such vehement opposition? It’s not like a pro-life bill gets passed and the pro-choice advocates sit back and do nothing. States have passed laws requiring abortion clinics to educate women on alternative options. There’s a 2015 law in California which forces pro-life advocacy centers to post information about abortion. The battle rages on.
    You have to do things one step at a time. And so conservative state legislatures pass laws that help.  Walsh seems to call that “compromise,” but it’s utilitarian, it’s doing what you can today to save the unborn. Will it save them all? Sadly, no.
    Just because you can’t save everyone doesn’t mean you should give up at trying to save anyone in the pursuit of saving everyone. You do what you can.
    The pro-life side should most certainly not compromise or flinch from the value of all human lives, and having a deserve to protect the unborn. It should not compromise from the reality that life begins at conception. It should not compromise that abortion is wrong, because it is taking a life. And the pro-life side should continue beating the drum and fighting for new laws.

    Josh Benner is the associate pastor at Cornerstone Evangelical Free Church in Fergus Falls, Minnesota and has a Master of Divinity from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He enjoys writing about faith and culture. He lives with his wife Kari in Minnesota.

  • The destructive force of our words

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    Originally published as “Only you can prevent forest fires: the destructive force of our words.” Originally published, February 20, 2017

    I was in Florida several years ago and Florida was having wildfires. Some areas were evacuating. If a person smoked a cigarette, they were told that they couldn’t throw it on the ground or it would start a fire.

    Something so small, such a small amount of smoke, could start a huge fire.

    With our words, the tongue, a relatively small part of the body, can be hugely destructive if a person isn’t careful.

    James uses fires as an illustration for the destruction that our words can cause. “How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire!” (James 3:5).  (more…)

  • Can a person truly have faith without living like they do?

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    Originally published December 20, 2016

    Vegans.

    When you’re a vegan, you don’t eat meat or use animal products. Being vegan is a lifestyle.

    Now if I said that I was vegan and invited you over to my place for dinner, and you said what are we having “surt and turt….we’re having some fish and steak” and then I was washing it down with a glass of milk, and my kitchen table was on a bearskin rug, and I was eating the meal with ivory handled silverware while wearing a fur coat, and we were facing my trophy wall that had deer heads….” You might start to think “you’re not vegan.”

    (more…)

  • The biggest mistake liberal Christians make

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    A few weeks ago, the Episcopal diocese in America voted to remove gender pronouns for God in updated versions of their Book of Common Prayer.

    I think many in our world believe in a gospel of “you’re ok.”

    I’ve been thinking a lot lately about liberal Christianity.

    They place a strong emphasis on love. And love is obviously important. The greatest commandment that Jesus gives is to love God and to love our neighbor. Not just to love our neighbor, but to love our neighbors as we love ourselves.

    But here’s where liberal Christians get it wrong.

    They emphasize love to the exclusion of other aspects of God.

    God is love. But he is not only love. God is also holy. God is also wise. God is also just and a judge.

    And when we hold up love as the only aspect of God that matters, it will ultimately lead to affirming that which is blasphemous.

    The gospel is not there to tell us that we’re all ok. Actually, it’s the opposite of that message. We are not called to love sin. Nowhere in the Bible is sin seen as a good thing. The Bible teaches that all of humanity is sinful. In fact, we are so sinful that the only way that we could be reconciled to God was for God to bear the cost of our sin. Jesus did that on the cross.

    God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8).

    Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends (John 15:13).

    Absolutely, we see the love of God in the gospel. But we also see his justice. Sin has an eternal penalty apart from Christ. And while he went to the cross to show his love, it also shows the cost of sin. Let us not take sin lightly.

    When we try to decide what is good apart from God’s moral law, it ends up becoming merely the opinions of men. As the common refrain in the Bible’s book of judges goes: “In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes (Judges 21:25).”

    God is love but he is also wise. And just as we can’t pick and choose who to love (we are called to love everyone, to want what’s best for everyone, to have concern for people) we also cannot pick and choose which aspects of God’s wisdom and morality we want to like. It’s all true.

    In the Beatitudes, Jesus teaches: blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.

    Blessedness is not in pursing worldly goals, it’s not in “following your truth,” it’s not in doing what makes you happy. It’s having a desire for the righteousness of the righteous and holy God who created the universe.

    And because God loves us, he doesn’t desire for us to be kept the same when we come to him. It’s not a difference of opinion between us and God in regards to sin. It’s truth and falsity.

    jrb

  • Why we shouldn’t celebrate vigilante justice

    Warning: the video contains graphic language.

    Randall Margraves is the father of two daughters who were sexually assaulted by Larry Nassar, the convicted former U.S.A gymnastics doctor.

    At his sentencing hearing this morning, Margraves asked the judge to speak. He then asked if he could have five minutes alone with Nassar. The judge said, “No sir,  I can’t do that.” He asked for one minute and the judge said, “You know I can’t do that, that’s not how our legal system…” (more…)