Too many churches are locally hostile to His law.

Antinomianism, fully worked out, is a heresy. Antinomianism, partially worked out, causes immense pain and sin on this earth. Antinomianism, barely conceived, is endemic in the Christian church, even in the elect, though foreign to our nature and ever more eradicated. The law of God is good and pure altogether, as many psalms, including Psalms 119 and 149, assure us. More, the law of God is integral to our Christian lives, as Romans 3-6 makes clear. When we abandon respect for the law, we abandon our sight of the need for grace and humility and even salvation, which is when antinomianism becomes heresy- and “Their condemnation is just,” to misquote Paul without misusing him (Rom. 3:8). But many, many Christians and Christian churches practice a form of antinomianism-by-omission, ignoring a part of the law rather than denying it, to their and our constant harm.

The omission is simple. A part of the world just drops out of view of the church, is politely avoided in conversation and teaching, is relegated to ‘do your own application.’ The church itself, of course, is not that part of life. Straight theology, like basic soteriology (minus the full breadth of sanctification), theology proper (the nature of God), and suchlike, that stays. Family matters get some time, though less than is advertised and often more simplistic, carefully restrained from the question of vocation which is crucial to family theology and family holiness. Marital relations may or may not be brought up in a meaningful way. Eschatology, now that’s the sticking point, because eschatology forms a part of the rationale for exclusion. But even there, the omission is usually accomplished by absence, not explicit excision.

So what has gone missing? What’s the justification?

We can sum up the omission into two big areas: politics and vocation. The first is the most glaring; the second is the most important. And a myriad of other omissions, such as the often anemic family theology, follow along. As for the justification, it tends to be a theology which makes the institutional church the centerpoint of Christian community (rather than the family which long precedes it (Gen. 1:28)) and limits the church’s real jurisdiction to the ‘personal,’ as defined by secularism’s orthodoxy a few decades ago. The church’s job is to teach theology and salvation, not….

Well, the parts that get left out are politics and vocation, as I’ve defined them. Politics is the easy one (and very important in the minds of the Radical Two Kingdoms side of the equation, as well as their less strident intellectual relatives). The church strives to follow an inverted Lemon test: pastors and teachers must never proffer political teaching, except in the most general terms and probably only by implication. Abortion is bad, yes, but don’t you dare discuss how taxation becomes government-run theft or where Romans 13:1-8 imposes limits.

(Alternately, though I’ve not attended a church on this pattern in person, politics can become superficial and partisan; rather than applying Scripture thoroughly and on its own terms, Scripture becomes a pretext to say ‘Our Side Good!’ and cheer for a pre-established, if typically defensible, political agenda).

Vocation is the doozie, though. Politics is big, but a refusal to come to grips with vocation- except for temporizing about not stealing and the like ‘pro-social’ (humanist) messaging- that refusal means the church surrenders most of life (and effectively the entire economy) to the world, to the religion of secularism (a.k.a. ‘Live like an atheist,’ don’t mind the labelling. Tack on a few prayers if you feel like it). If the church cannot regard people’s dominion pursuits as crucial and central, part of the Great Commission’s discipling work and the fulfilment of the Dominion Mandate, the church cannot actually deal with the problems that people have in the world. The church becomes super-therapy, now with extra doctrine and an awkward refusal to actually grapple the big problems.

Whether it’s pretexted on eschatology, ecclesiology, or not talking about it, the church’s self-imposition of these limits is evil. The church teaches Christians to surrender so much to the world, to the flesh, to the devil. The church heeds and agrees with the secularist religion which is the state religion and seeks to become total.

Scripture, of course, is not amenable to this omissive work. Scripture speaks constantly on daily life (Proverbs, anybody?), on civil government, on the heartbreakingly difficult issues of family and personal life. So the result, when the church avoids these areas, is a lopsided, manifestly mutilated witness. The church’s teaching becomes a delicate tap-dance with truth, limboing under commands and dodging reality. In my experience, the primary result is that the preaching and the teaching become painfully superficial and even repetitive, making occasional lipservice to commands like, “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments” (John 14:15), but refusing to grapple with their depths, with the fact that the whole of the Law is part of those “commandments.”

Scripture is clear: Christians have a comprehensive calling (1 Thess. 5:20-21; Is. 9:1-7; Is. 65). The church’s teaching should reflect this.

God bless.