The peril of "We've got to do something!"

by Dan Phillips

Many really horrific ideas owe their genesis to really horrific needs.

This is obvious in the realm of politics. It goes like this:

1. Bob says, "Yikes! Has anyone even noticed {crying need}? Isn't anybody doing anything about it?
2. Bill says, "Holy smoke, yes! That's terrible! Quick: let's empower the State to confiscate more liberty and money from the productive, and create vast legislation and huge bureaucracies to solve that problem!"
3. Bob: "Oh, well, gee, I dunno; are you sure that's the best way to...?"
4. Bill: "This is an emergency! There's no time for discussion! We must act now! What — don't you care about The Children? Besides, this is only temporary."
5. Bob: "Oh, yeah, good point. Okay. Go ahead."

And another permanent blight is born. The problem not only is not addressed, but it is compounded and institutionalized.

Perhaps this same phenomenon is less obvious in the realm of theology, doctrine, church polity. The general course, however, is very similar:

1. PelArminKesWesHam says, "Oh dear Lord, the church is {something direly unspiritual}."
2. Simplicius replies, "Ooh, mercy, yes. I see that!"
3. PelArminKesWesHam: "The solution must be to {do some horrifically un-Biblical thing}!"
4. Simplicius: "Oh, gosh, I don't know. Are you sure that's really Scriptural?"
5. PelArminKesWesHam: "There's no time for debate! Doctrine divides! Souls are dying! Christ's name is dishonored! The hour is late! We must act now!"
6. Simplicius: "Oh, gee..."
7. PelArminKesWesHam: "What — don't you love God? Don't you care about people?"
8. Simplicius: "Well, sure."
9. PelArminKesWesHam: "Then we must act now!"
10. Simplicius: "Oh. Okay."

And another bad doctrine / harmful practice takes its permanent place to blight the landscape. The problem not only is not remedied, but it is compounded and institutionalized.

If later generations try to undo this dreadful "solution," it goes like this:

1. Biblicus: "You know, ________ism really isn't Biblical."
2. DriscTickLer: "You're a fear-driven unbelieving libertine Deist hater who drives people away from Jesus. You're ignorant of the book that came out last week proving that we're right. Plus, you're jealous of our superpowers."
3. Biblicus: "Oh. Right. I forgot. My bad. Um... sorry."

What to do?

The wrong way of responding is to ignore or minimize the problem that gave birth to the error.

For instance, how many false teachings have arisen as well-intended attempts to counter the lassitude, the lukewarmness, the worldliness, the timidity, the carnality, the cowardice, the ineffectiveness, the powerlessness, and the general pathetic anemic ill-health of the bulk of professed Christians? I daresay a majority of false teaching and bad philosophy was swaddled in that manger.

So we're told: The problem with these pathetic lumps is that their Calvinism has made them passive slugs, their Biblicism has made them isolated lab-technicians, their cessationism has made them functional materialists.

And we're told: What they really need is to realize that, if they don't work harder, they'll lose their salvation. They need to see that a deeper, more powerful Christian life is only one deeper, climactic work of grace away. They need the baptism with the Spirit. They need God to mutter holy nothings in their ears. They need to babble cathartically. They need their hunches validated and respected and canonized — though not in any accountable way! They need to modify their convictions to be friendlier to the world. Sand off the edges. Fit in.

There y'go. Problem solved.

But of course the problem isn't solved. In fact, it's compounded, and now it's institutionalized. Christians are still carnal, but now they're super-spiritually carnal and proud and immune to Biblical admonition. And so on.

So in responding, here's what we must do:

1. We must grant the seriousness of the problem when applicable — and it usually is applicable.
2. We must perform a rigorously Biblical analysis and diagnosis of the problem, calmly and deliberately.
3. We must execute a rigorously Biblical, clear-eyed, and unsparing examination of the un-Biblical "solutions" that have been proposed, expose them unambiguously, and issue a clarion call for their instant and decisive repudiation and rejection .
4. We must produce a rigorously robustly Biblical prescription to address the problem, showing insistently and repeatedly and in detail and from a dozen angles how it actually does address the causation and remedy the misery.

And there, in truth, you go. So do that. On "three."

I'll wait right here.

One... two...

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